
Class Z)AAliL 

GopightN?_ 



CORfRIGHT DEPOSm 



THE WOMEN 

OF 

THE GAEL 

By 
JAMES F. CASSIDY, B. A. 




1922 

THE STRATFORD COMPANY 

Publishers 
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 




Copyright, 1922 

The STRATFORD CO., Publishers 

Boston, Mass. 



The Alpine Press, Boston, Mass., U. S. A, 

JUN 1 2 1922 

vyaAR77095 
•no ( 



The author wishes to thank The Mac Millan 
Publishing Company, Messrs. Funk and Wagnalls, Mr. 
Padraic Colum and Mr. Seumas Mac Manus for per- 
mission to reprint certain poems included in this 
Volume. 



Contents 

Chapter Page 

Introduction 1 

I In the Pagan Tales of Love and War . . 7 
II The Social Dignity of Women . . .18 

III The Objects of Men's Reverence . . 30 

IV Feminine Morality in Pagan Days . . 43 
V When Saints Were Numerous . . .54 

VI Women of Action from the Ninth to the 

Seventeenth Century . . . .74 

VII Virtuous and Noble from the Dane to 

Elizabeth . . . . . .100 

VIII Devotion to Letters from the Sixth to the 

Eighteenth Century .... 122 

IX Heroines from Elizabeth to the Present Day 132 
X Womanly Morality and Honour from the 

Sixteenth Century Onwards . . . 169 
XI Writers of the Nineteenth and Twentieth 

Centuries 181 

XII The Mothers and Daughters of To-day . 198 



Prefatory Note 



IT IS proper that a country that has taken for itself the 
most feminine representation should have a book devoted 

to the eulogy of its womanhood. "The Women of the 
Gael" renders justice — even romantic justice — to the woman- 
hood of the country whose representations are Dark Rosaleen, 
and Kathleen ni Houlihan, and The Poor Old Woman. Its 
writer has made of it a long roll of honor, a roll of women with 
beautiful names who have been remembered for their piety, 
their learning, and their patriotism : It is distinctly a Legend 
of Good Women. 

Little is said of another type of woman that has been 
celebrated from far-of times in Ireland — the woman whose 
virtue was in her overflowing energy, the woman whose type 
is Queen Maeve, bearer of warrior children, herself a warrior 
and a great lover. And naturally in a Legend of Good Women 
nothing would be said of that woman of the O'Briens who, on 
coming back to her castle, finds the women lamenting for her 
husband slain in battle, and says "Dead men are no use to us 
here," and rides back to the battle-line, and there and then 
marries the general of the opposing army. Little is said of the 
women of that type : The Women of the Gael who are spoken 
of have their names on the roll for being guardians of the 
national virtue and custodians of the Gaelic civilization. 

The conquest of Ireland — or rather, the repeated half- 
conquests of the country — inflicted an especial wrong upon 
the Women of the Gael. Peculiarly fitted as they were for a 
brilliant social life and for artistic enterprise of every kind, 
they were, with the exception of privileged ones, deprived 
of a life that might have such manifestations. It was 
theirs to spiritualize as harsh conditions as were any- 
where. A single glimpse is often revealing, and we have 
seen Connacht women come in from working in the fields, 



The Women of the Gael 

stand by a little window, and with hands that have labored out- 
side, work the delicate laee that is to become the possession of 
some radiant lady at the other side of the ocean. And we have 
often heard from women who have finished such double tasks 
such wit and poetry as one would listen for in vain in the 
drawing room of the radiant lady. That clever observer of 
European life, Max O'Rell, placed Europe's most charming 
women in Hungarj'^ and in Ireland. "In the drawing rooms of 
Buda-Pesth," he said. And he was compelled to add "In the 
potato-fields of Ireland." 

The conquest of Ireland is being repealed, and the democ- 
racy of Ireland is emerging towards the brilliant social life and 
the artistic enterprise that the women of Ireland are so well 
fitted for. And, as Father Cassidy has shown, the women of 
the Gael well deserve a place in that redeemed democracy, for 
it is largely due to them — to their inspiration, their heroic 
memory, their courage, their actual combativeness, that the 
emancipation has been achieved. It it due to them that Ireland 
has remained Irish and Gaelic. The women always had more 
than a single share of the racial heritage, and the Norse and 
the Normans and the English who married with them found 
that their children had it in them to become "Kindly Irish of 
the Irish." 

Another observer of Europe — Dr. Brandes, I think — has 
noted that in Germanic countries the men, in terms of per- 
sonality, are superior to the women; that in Latin countries 
men and women are equal, and in Slavonic countries — he was 
thinking especially of Poland — the women are superior to the 
men. Ireland in this regard is like Latin Europe — indeed in 
some parts she is close to Slavonic Europe. Again let us go 
to the most Gaelic part of Europe — to Connacht. There the 
men are certainly not superior to the women; the women, in 
terms of personality have the ascendency. This may be due, 
not to a racial heritage, but to local circumstances, for the 
smallness of the fields in a place where one works only with 
the spade, gives the man little room for development. How- 
ever that may be, the women in Connacht have the ascendency. 



Prefatory Note 

and this ascendency has left a spiritual mark — in the beautiful 
and poignant songs that express the woman's side in love, and 
in the number of words in the language the use for the thin^ 
that are especially in the woman's care — the number of words 
for "child" for instance. The Gaelic civilization as we see it 
in Connacht is distinctly a feminine civilization. 

Even if we had no record in history of the status of women 
in Ireland, we could judge that it was high from saga and 
romance, and from those naive reconstructions of history that 
early peoples make. The epic tale and the sagas show women 
moving with more freedom than they have in Homer and more 
freedom than they have in the Germanic sagas. The very 
names for Ireland — Eire, Banba, Fodhla, were taken from 
the three queens that the Milesian adventurers found in 
Ireland. All this would show that the status was high and 
free. But we have an actual law promulgated in 694-5 that 
gives a notable franchise to women. 

Before that time, in a disturbed epoch, there must have- 
been great hardships inflicted on the women of Ireland. They 
had to take part in war and in battle. But in Ireland there 
were men who were revolted by these conditions, and that dis- 
tinguished scholar and statesman, Adamnan, abbot of lona 
and friend of the Venerable Bede, undertook to win a status 
for them. 

He was travelling with his mother and he offered to carry 
her on his back. She refused his help, saying she would not be 
carried by an undutiful son. Where had he failed in his duty? 
Adamnan asked. She told him he had failed because he had 
not freed the women of Ireland from their political bondage. 
There and then he undertook to do it, going on a hunger-strike 
until the Kings would come to terms with him. "It shall not 
be in my time if it is done," said the King, Loingsech Bregban, 
speaking like the conservative of all time, "an evil time when 
a man's sleep shall be murdered for women, that women should 
live men should be slain. Put the deaf and dumb to the 
sword who asserts anything but that women shall be in ever- 



The Women of the Gael 

lasting bondage to the brink of Doom." Seven kings supported 
Loingsech, but, by the power of God, Adamnan overcame them. 
Thereafter Adamnan's law was accepted, and the securities for 
its fulfilment were — The Sun and the Moon and all the other 
elements of God, Peter, Paul, Andrew and all the other 
Apostles, together with the Irish saints. Those who violated 
the law drew on themselves the maledictions of those great 
powers. Adamnan also inserted a curse in the daily service 
against those who put themselves against the spirit of the law. 

After that the women of Ireland had unquestioned status. 
They had control of their own property. Those who drew them 
into battle were punished severely. If a man slew a woman 
lie was condemned to two-fold punishment. If a woman was 
slain by part of an army every fifth man up to the three 
hundredth was condemned to a severe penalty. Even for in- 
sult the penalty was made heavy. "If it be by making a 
gentlewoman blush by imputing unchastity to her, or by throw- 
ing doubt on the legitimacy of her offspring a fine of seven 
cwmals shall be exacted." 

The position of women in Ancient Ireland is revealed by 
the apostrophe of the writer of the tenth century treatise o.n 
"Adamnan's Law." "Adamnan suffered much harship for your 
sake, women, so that ever since Adamnan's time one half 
of your house is yours, and there is a place for your chair in 
the other half; so, that your contract and your safeguard are 
free. And the first law made in Heaven and on Earth for 
women is Adamnan's Law." So, very long ago, women in 
Ireland had a position that was formally recognized. 

It is very just that at this time a writer should make a 
record for the women of Ireland, reminding us of what that 
clever cosmopolitan observer who has been quoted before. Max 
O'Rell, once said. "There will be no one to tell it, but bear this 
in mind: If ever Ireland come to anything it will be because 
of her women." Well, Ireland, has come to something. And 
there has been one to tell us why: It is because of the faith, 
the courage, the wisdom and the wit of THE WOMEN OF 
THE GAEL. 

PADRAIC COLUM. 



Introduction 



The Women of the Gael 

ANY national biography that seriously ne- 
glects the role of woman in a people's life 
must be condemned as dwarfed and incom- 
plete. It is a repudiation of an element of a na- 
tion's existence that is most vitally fundamental 
and forceful. It lacks that medium through which 
the eye of the interpretative searcher after truth 
can behold the mystic depths of a nation's soul 
and reveal with a sense of substantial realism the 
glory, beauty and strength which live and operate 
in the corporate individuality of a people. Nation- 
hood is a most delicately fashioned and intricate 
thing and defies with ease all human efforts to ac- 
complish its ultimate and perfect analysis. The 
clearest conception of its nature can only be 
attained by a study of the simplest yet most endur- 
ing and far-reaching factors on which its perplex- 
ing labyrinth is constructed. At the fountain-head 
whence the stream of life has issued must the stu- 
dent labour to acquire a reasonably successful 
knowledge of the secrets of a people's evolution 
and there he shall find that the greatest and most 

[0 



r 



Introduction 

life-giving element of this nutritive spring is 
woman. 

Nationhood is primarily the product of spirit- 
ual forces. Divorced from the mastery of the soul 
a people may constitute for itself a world hege- 
mony through the power of its artillery or the 
multitude of its merchant-men but it cannot boast 
of fidelity to that part of its nature which alone 
has the most enduring influence upon the future 
of itself and of all mankind. It is for this reason 
that woman is more essentially responsible for 
the development of the ideas that make for the per- 
petuity of national life. She is the main worker 
in the garden of the souls of children whence the 
nation must extract its spiritual nutrition. She 
is more constantly and familiarly in contact with 
the sacredness of the child soul than man. Hence 
her knowledge of the precious beings confided to 
her care endows her with limitless power to win 
their confidence and mould their character. When 
she points the way to the ruling verities of the in- 
visible world the impressionable heart of the child 
naturally heeds her words for it trusts the one it 
knows best and, above all, the one whose feminine 
delicacy is a most efficient interpreter of the 
spiritual world for the young and tender soul. 

If this feminine contribution to the greatness 
of nations is an indubitable fact that can not be 
overlooked it is especially so in the case of Ire- 
land. Nowhere does woman exert a greater influ- 
ence than in that island outpost of western 

[2] 



Introduction 

Europe. Several influences conspire to create for 
her therein an atmosphere most congenial for the 
operation of her nature. Of these we will cite a 
few of the most potent. The manhood of the Irish 
Celt has a decidedly supernatural bent which has 
established within it a sympathetic comprehen- 
sion of woman born of a striking kinship with her 
being. The feminine factor in the Irishman's 
make-up begets a remarkable harmony of thought 
and feeling between him and his racial sister which 
resulting in unbounded trust in her gives her an 
honoured position as mother, wife and maiden that 
is scarcely paralleled in any other country. Then, 
too, he is an idealist and hungers for an idol to wor- 
ship, for some worthy object to absorb the highest 
energy of his soul: this he finds in a pure woman- 
hood. Yetj despite the delicacy of his nature the 
Irishman is as manly a type as breathes. On this 
account he finds in the extreme femininity of the 
daughters of the Gael a most suitable complement 
of his own sturdy manliness. The sheer force of 
contrast draws him towards her with a sense of 
passionate reverence and a vivid conception of the 
many qualities of her being that are admirably cal- 
culated to fill many a void in his nature and 
contribute to its strength and happiness. 

Fully cognisant of this dominating position of 
woman in Irish life the writer with a sense of duty 
as well as pleasure has assumed the task of paying 
a more extensive tribute to the daughters of the 
Gael than has hitherto appeared in print. This we 

[3] 



Introduction 

do not intend to accomplisli by elabourate acconnts 
of distinguished individuals in severe isolation 
from the common mass of Irish womanhood. We 
hope that the nature of our work shall be such 
that the reader can see in the women who enter 
into our narrative great and brilliant personalities 
dependent for their nobility on the wine of in- 
spiration which they derived from the secret vin- 
tage of character which is the heritage of the 
whole body of the daughters of Erin. The great- 
ness of the relatively few with whom we have to 
deal shall be symbolic of the greatness of the 
many because it would have been impossible had 
not the common properties of feminine Gaeldom 
been wholesome and enduring. The distinguished 
daughters of Ireland are the bright-crested 
billows of the vast sea of the womanhood of their 
race dependent for their might and beauty on 
the ever bounteous depths of the source that pro- 
duced and sustained them. They are no freakish 
exceptions but the continuous and unfailing prod- 
ucts of their race and civilisation. 

And just as truly as their lives reveal traits 
that are the property of the race rather than 
qualities inhering in a mere group of abnormally 
gifted individuals so they also manifest attributes 
that are primarily in consonance with all that is 
womanly. They are rarely sexually unsphered 
when doing the work of Ireland. Sometimes, in- 
deed, feminine activity assumes an aggressiveness 
that savours of masculinity in the field of battle, 

[4] 



Introduction 

the diplomatic arena and the sphere of the agi- 
tator. Even in these instances Irish women pri- 
marily forge their way to success because they 
are women. No matter what masculinity of fibre 
is discoverable in their personalities it is not such 
as to unsex them and deprive them of that spirit- 
uality of appeal which feminine character flings 
out to an impressionable and soulful manhood. 
In other words, womanhood is practically in its 
entirety valuable tojreland as an indirect rather 
than a direct force. ' It furnishes a light of ideal- 
ism in which the manhood of the nation sees 
many incentives for the maintenance of its 
patriotic endeavours and the deeds it inspires 
by its spirit-influence are far more important 
than anything that results from its own direct 
participation in acts that are more suited for 
manly hands to do^ It wins for itself a respect 
that compels men to regard it as an intimate and 
most sacred part of that national heritage for 
which they were in honour bound to struggle and 
die. 



[5] 



CHAPTER I 

In the Pagan Tales of Love and Wak 

IN THE tales of old, be they of a mythical or 
quasi-mythical nature, there is much em- 
balmed that is founded on the rock of fact. A 
man may regard with the eyes of a skeptic the exis- 
tence of gods and heroes but he can not deny that 
the milieu of thought and sentiment which en- 
velopes them must reveal most interesting aspects 
of the creative brain whence they emanated. In- 
deed, peoples in their infancy give in their literary 
creations a more real expression of racial prin- 
ciples than any bald scientific enumeration of facts 
can furnish. As a well-known writer states: 
^^the mythical heroes which a race creates for 
itself, the aspirations which it embodies and 
illustrates, the sentiments which it immortalises 
in story and ballad, will help us to under- 
stand the real character of the race better 
than it could be expounded to us by any 
collection of the best authenticated statistics. ''* 
Mere figures have only an incomplete mathe- 
matical value whilst the vital and human 
currents of thought-electricity that vivify the 
pages of ancient story are a more reliable index 

. * Irish Literature, ed Justin MaCarthy. Vol. 1 p. i. 

[7] 



The Women of the Gael 

of the qualities that reside in the power-house of 
that section of humanity to which they owe their 
existence. 

Bearing this in mind we go back to the twilight 
of Gaelic story for our initial views of Irish 
womanhood. Here we find the feminine section 
of the Gael enjoying a conspicuous place in the 
world of letters. Kindling in the hearts of men 
the fires of tenderness or rousing within them the 
tempests of battle-fury these ancient heroines are 
worthy subjects of epic masterpieces. The spell 
that is associated with their majesty of manner 
is as potent to hypnotise and woo to sympathetic 
mood, the reader as is the magic charm of their 
alluring and delicate femininity. 

Who that knows aught of literature has not 
heard of Deirdre, that sorrow-burdened woman 
symbolic of suffering Eire? She is the central 
figure of the tragic tale that bears her name and 
so magnificent is the woe that encircles her therein 
that Dr. Sigerson deems this piece of literature 
**the first tragedy outside the classics in Europe.'' 
It is certainly the finest, most pathetic and deftly 
executed of all the ancient tales of Ireland. 

And the greatness that is Deirdre 's is not rooted 
in conquering malice but a resplendent nobility. 
The helpless prey of a malign destiny she permits 
the surges of woe to inundate and overwhelm her 
without ever losing her queenly dignity. Like a 
luminous symbol expressive of the sorrow and 
unflinching heroism of the Celt she concentrates 

[8] 



In the Pagan Tales of Love and War 

in her personality the twin and constant heritage 
of the race, grief ever mating with invincible 
majesty of mien. Honourable principle and 
sweetest tenderness form in her a combination 
that constitute her one of the most sublime women 
of myth. True to the bond of affection that binds 
her to her brothers she fears not to accompany 
them whithersoever they may go, though the 
threatening clouds of impending disaster tell this 
child of prophecy of the inevitable fate that is 
hers. She leaves the pleasant ways of Alba be- 
hind her where the raptures of the cuckoo's voice 
on bending bough and the glory of scenic beauty 
held her soul enthralled and faces with fortitude 
the stern future of her visions. When utter grief 
had become her lot and cruel perfidy brought her 
lover, Naoisi, and her brothers, Annla and Ardan 
to their violent deaths she mourns them with a 
titanic sorrow that is intensely expressive of the 
Irishwoman's loyalty to family and kin. Listen 
to her as the torrent of lament pours forth through 
the floodgates of her soul while she stands by the 
grave of the beloved three and you can not but 
feel admiration for the infant genius of the Gael 
that could create in the utterance of this far-off 
lonely figure so human and time-defying an 
appeal : 

*'0 man who diggest the new grave 
Make not the grave narrowly ; 



Beside the grave I will b( 
Making sorrow and lamentations. 

[9] 



The Women of the Gael 

I was not one day alone, 
Till the day of the making of the grave 
Though oftentimes have I myself 
And yourself been lonely. 

I am Deirdre without pleasure 
And I in the end of my life ; 
Since it is grievous to be after them, 
I will myself not be long. 

Turning from dignified sorrow to the stern field 
of war we find a female character strong with the 
strength of the Gael's pride. This is Maeve, the 
peerless warrior queen of Connaught. She is one 
of the leading personalities of the Tain, which is 
numbered amongst the greatest prose epics of 
antiquity. All the tempestuous scenes of strife, 
wild cattle forays and deathless deeds of chivalry 
that live in the womb of the Tain are not deemed 
too terrible or splendid to find their source in the 
pride of a woman of the Gael. The Greeks built 
the masterpiece of the lUiad on the weakness of 
Helen but the Irish evolved the Tain from the 
massive and unbending fibre of royal Maeve 's 
character. 

Yet for all her stubborn strength she had the 
heart of a woman. Verses still survive to show 
that when that husband over whom she towered 
lay still in death she gave vent to a truly feminine 
lament indicative of a sense of loss created by 
the departure from her life of one whom the soul 

[10] 



In the Pagan Tales of Love and War 

of a woman needed. *^ Kindly king" she ex- 
claimed, 

** who liked not lies, 

Rash to rise to fields of fame, 
Raven black his brows of fear, 
Razor-sharp his spear of flame." 

It is little wonder that her fascination for literary 
minds is cosmopolitan and that — to mention one 
of many notables of the pen — she captivated the 
inspired eye of Spenser who deemed her worthy 
of a place in his masterpiece, the Faerie Queene. 

But it is in the tales that are burdened with 
the eternal message of love, that key to the gate- 
way of power, which woman wields with sovereign 
skill that the daughters of ancient Eire play the 
most conspicuous part. In this type of literature 
which is so vitally dependent for inspiration on a 
true study of womanhood the Irish took an es- 
pecial interest. A considerable portion of the 
early heroic literature is devoted to the subject 
of love and the power that woman wields through 
it to move great men to deeds that claim the 
tribute of a nation's admiration. No less than 
thirteen courtships and twelve elopements enjoy 
the company of Ireland's other ancient tales. We 
have it from no less an authority than Eleanor 
Hull that the first story of the human race telling 
of the activities of passionate hearts came from 
the brain of the Gael. It was Ireland first 
glorified the mysteries veiling and the beauty in 



The Women of the Gael 

forming the magnetism of woman's heart for man 
and the noble efforts of the latter to be worthy 
of the admiration of the gentler sex. The country 
was fortunate in the selection of the subject to 
which she was to give special attention for she 
manipulated it with a rare success. In her early 
literature of love, heroines possess a variety of 
type and a distinctness and individuality of char- 
acter that surpass what is best even in the 
Arthurian legend. 

One of the tenderest love tales ever penned is 
the Wooing of Etain, which deals with the lure 
there was in the heart of a lady of no mortal 
lineage for a monarch of Ireland. It is permeated 
by a singular detachment from debased motive 
and a certain platonism in the immaterial hunger 
of soul for soul that is generally the attribute of 
all kindred themes in Gaelic letters. The heart 
of a monarch is subdued by the vision of a woman 
whose ruling attraction is the spiritual beauty of 
her form and the life she enjoys in Tir na N-Og, 
the land of pure though passionate hearts. Yet 
for all the spirit influence of Etain she embodies 
much that is human and feminine. 

The most primitive attempt of the Gael to tell 
in song of love is found in Fand's Farewell to 
Cuchulainn. In it there dwells a pathos most 
striking and delicate for so early an age. In 
spirituality of feeling it is akin to the Wooing 
but its human tenderness and heart searching 
potency is its supreme asset. It is in this dom- 

[12] 



In the Pagan Tales of Love and War 

inant characteristic that its guarantee of im- 
mortality resides for there is little doubt but that 
in the words of Dr. Sigerson the music of its 
passionate chimes shall ** vibrate in the human 
heart till mankind is no more. ' ' 

In the Fenian cycle of saga there is bountiful 
evidence of the love-impetuosity of the Celt. 
Caoilte's Urn yields a proof of the impulsive 
readiness of heroic Ireland to respond to the at- 
tractions of women when their mode of appeal 
was even decidedly intellectual. Finn, the arch- 
hero of the knightly Fenians, becomes at first 
sight the prey of the beauty of the daughter of 
Eanna. But the fair damsel did not rely on mere 
physical attractions and she took into her service 
the power of music to aid her symmetry of form 
in its onslaught on the soul of the rugged warrior. 
Thus her mode of wooing is elevated and subtle. 
She brings to her assistance her father, a noted 
harpist, whom the old Celtic writer with all the 
wealth of his perfervid imagination describes as 
unsurpassable. Speaking of the wondrous airs 
this musician could manipulate, he says: *4f the 
deft goltarghleas were played for the kings of the 
melodious world, all that might hear, though sor- 
rowless, would feel a lasting sorrow. If the clear 
gantarghleas were played for the grave kings of 
the earth, all that might hear without contempt 
would be forever laughing. If the full suantargh- 
leas were played for the kings of the bright world, 
all that might hear (a wondrous way) would fall 

[13] 



The Women of the Gael 

into a lasting sleep. *'* Thus did maidenhood in 
those days enlist the aid of the tearful, laughing, 
dreamy strains of the wizard of the harp to win 
its heart's desire. Is it little wonder that with 
such an ally it rarely failed to search all that 
was best in the inmost being of its beloved and 
batter down his last fortress of hesitancy? 

A few other kindred tales there are worthy of 
some notice here. In Baile, the Sweet-Spoken, 
we meet with a most poignant picture having for 
its background a sublime passion. But the sword 
of sorrow that pierces as we read it borrows a 
terrible beauty from the love that produced it. 
The tragic glory with which it is endowed is but 
an index of the splendid fire of love in which its 
penetrating steel was tempered. Two passionate 
hearts grow cold in death through sheer grief for 
one another caused by the false news of mutual 
dissolution. The rumour was untrue but the 
credence given it made a reality of a non-existent 
tragedy. 

Not so tragic but highly complimentary to 
woman is Diarmuid and Grainne, one of the finest 
of the Fenian tales. It is replete with the heroic 
efforts of a gallant knight to face unflinchingly all 
trials that might beset him to save and honour 
his intended bride. The fury of the jealous and 
relentless Finn menaced him on every side but 
the staunch young Diarmuid never failed to suc- 
cour his beloved Grainne and the feats by which 

* The Book of the Lays of Finn. J. MacNeill. p. 147. 



In the Pagan Tales of Love and War 

he ofttimes rescued her from the most perilous 
situation illumine the story with an almost con- 
stant brilliancy of soul-stirring adventure. 

Tales there are, too, that deal not specifically 
with love or war, though these in miniature 
appear, where woman is the pivotal point of in- 
terest. One is so preoccupied with a feminine 
problem that its title tells the reader that the 
actions of women is its sole theme; it is called 
The Women's War of Words. A banquet was 
provided by a noted entertainer named Bricriu 
for all that was most knightly in the Red Branch 
ranks. With the heroes came their ladies priding 
in their distinguished husbands. As the guests 
were about to take their places at the festive 
board the women sought positions in consonance 
with the rank of their lords. The result was a 
violent controversy for each lady contended for 
priority of place. As the debate waxed louder 
and more vehement it reached the ears of the ban- 
queting nobles. The sound of the combatting 
voices roused them to battle-fury and only diplo- 
macy kept them from red slaughter for their 
ladies' sake. They knew the unyielding pride of 
their womanhood rooted in the domestic virtue of 
devotion to their husbands and were ready to a 
man to vindicate it to the utmost. 

A like principle of manly loyalty to womanhood 
is in evidence in the Burning of Finn's house. 
The women folk of this famous stead, in the ab- 
sence of their husbands, raised a false cry of 

[15] 



The Women of the Oael 

alarm that they might behold an aged man named 
Garaid whom in his sleep they had bound by hair 
and beard to the hostel endeavoring to come to 
their rescue. The old warrior discovering the in- 
sult offered him, set fire to the house and com- 
mitted them to a dreadful death. The story in- 
deed manifests most primitive savagery on the 
part of the enraged warrior and crude wantonness 
on the part of the women. Yet the readiness with 
which they anticipated a response to their outcry 
shows their faith in the men of the Gael whilst 
the old man's vindictiveness is somewhat atoned 
for by his alertness of action for the sake of 
woman in distress. Garaid has the untamed pas- 
sion of the early Gaelic fighting man which knows 
no checks in the presence of falsehood. Only 
where truth and honor clamoured for support in 
the service of womanhood did that wild tempera- 
ment become submissive yoked to the service- 
chariot of the gentler sex. 

Closely associated with the feminine ideals that 
permeate so much of the literature of love and 
war is that patriotic instinct which was the prop- 
erty of the women of the Gael. It pervades their 
domestic relations and lends a glamour to the 
tragedies of conflict. In the Death of Cuchulainn 
the solicitude of his wife and other ladies for 
his safety is prompted by their pride in him as 
prime champion of their land as well as by their 
womanly admiration for a magnificent type of 
manhood. When the sons of Galatin, in one of 

[i6] 



In the Pagan Tales of Love and War 

the most dramatic incidents of the story, in league 
with the mystic agencies of the druids endeavor 
to secure the ruin of this champion of the Gael 
these ladies render futile their attempts and pre- 
serve him for the future glory of their country. 
In the touching song of Crede, daughter of Guaire 
the generous, the red fire of a woman's patriotic 
passion is kindled at the sight of the ruddy wounds 
that mar the figure of her father stricken in de- 
fense of his people. While she thinks of these, 
the angel touch of sleep cannot soothe her for 
their haunting presence are as * * arrows that mur- 
der sleep in the bitter cold night.'' Thus might 
we enumerate instance after instance to demon- 
strate the ancient Irish belief in the patriotism 
of the women of Erin. The sayings of ladies are 
manifold displaying the *amor patriae' that 
burned in their bosoms. It is even this sense of 
patriotism that contributes to the elevated moral 
principles of Irish womanhood in pagan days 
when they consider adultery one of the gravest 
of crimes. They regard it as a national as well 
as a moral stain on the soul of the guilty one for 
it strikes at that purity of race that is one of the 
most treasured possessions of the Celts. And if 
it is the spiritual and the poetic in the Irishman 
as well as his ruggedness of soul that rivet his 
being to his motherland it is only reasonable that 
these characteristics which are emphatically pres- 
ent in his very feminine sisterhood should bind it 
passionately to its country. 

[17] 



CHAPTER II 

The Social Dignity Of "Women 

DEPAETING from the rose-tinged world of 
romance to a more prosaic discussion of 
the public and social position accorded 
woman in ancient Ireland there is an abundance 
of data at hand to render the fruits of our search 
highly creditable to our subject. Just as she has 
charm and influence where the finest and most 
soul-searching things of life are in demand, so she 
owns sterner qualities which procure her an 
honourable entrance to the place where clarity 
of intellect, robustness of spirit and fortitude of 
a high calibre adorn her actions and add lustre 
to her nation. 

A vari-coloured evidence taken broadly from 
the different angles from which old writers regard 
her, shows their general acceptance of her capacity 
for shouldering public burdens. A prominence 
is commonly given therein to the role of woman 
in civic life that, in the literature of the Teutons 
is usually handed over to man. Eleanor Hull 
who is intimately acquainted with old Celtic writ- 
ings ably summarises for us the evidence she 
discovers in favour of the social dignity of the 
daughters of the Gael. She tells us how marked 

[i8] 



The Social Dignity of Women 

strength, and conquering ambition together with 
a subtle beauty and sunniness of temperament 
wins for Irish women the respect they covet. ^ ^ The 
Irish women/' she says, ** belong to an heroic 
type. They are often the counsellors of their hus- 
bands and the champions of their cause; oc- 
casionally, as in Maeve's case, their masters. 
They are frequently fierce and vindictive, but 
they are also strong, forceful and intelligent. In 
youth they possess often a charming gaiety ; they 
are full of clever repartee and waywardness and 
have a delightful and wayward self-confidence. 
Emer, especially has a great deal of the modern 
woman about her; she is no lovelorn maid to be 
caught by the words of a wooer's tongue, even 
though her lover is Cuchulainn; she is gay, petu- 
lant and not too readily satisfied. He thinks to 
win his cause simply by the fame of his name and 
the splendour of his appearance, but she makes 
larger demands ; nor will she listen to his suit until 
she has won from him respect and admiration 
as well as affection.''* 

The nation seems to have been aware of the 
presence of these strong qualities and accordingly 
has recourse to unique methods to recognize its 
debt to its women. Some of the most distinguished 
amongst them are given a special prominence 
in the genealogical strata of which a tribal com- 
monwealth was intensely jealous and proud. 
Oftentimes the names of noted men enshrined 



\ 



A Text Book of Irish Literature, p. 78. 

[19] 



The Women of the Gael 

those of their mothers thus linking the glory of 
maternal parents with that of their sons for all 
time. In this wise did the illustrious warrior of 
the North, King Conor Mac Nessa honour the 
one who hore him. Sometimes they are pursued 
even to their last long resting-place by the solic- 
itude of the people. There are recorded instances 
of cemeteries for the burial of women alone where 
enduring sleep might hold them in honourable 
seclusion from the other sex and where the peril 
of having their memory obliterated through the 
intrusion of greater masculine celebrities might 
be obviated. But surpassing every tribute of re- 
spect to the women of the race is that of the 
writer who says that ^* after Mary, the Mother 
of God, the six best women in the world were 
Maeve, Saiv, Sarait, Ere, Emer and Achall. ^ ' He 
feared not to compare the product of his land in 
its pagan state with the best that any other clime 
produced even under the tutelage of Christianity. 
Considering more specifically the various de- 
partments in which the women of old won re- 
nown we find that in the councils which control 
the destinies of embattled hosts they were often- 
times conspicuous figures. Maeve of Connaught 
is the superior of her husband in the intellectual 
as well as the physical leadership of their armies. 
It was the strength of her arm and the virility 
of her mind that made the chieftains of three 
provinces with their troops hearken to her will. 
And when the manhood of three-fourths of Erin 

[20] 



The Social Dignity of Women 

met together under her banner to carry red war 
into Ulster to wrench from it the pride of its 
steers, the Dnn Bull of Cooley, it was her master 
intellect that grappled with the problems of or- 
ganization and strategy incidental to the enter- 
prise. Hers was a commanding and invincible will 
that never quailed before obstructing forces and 
tested to its utmost the ingenuity of Cuchulainn 
himself. Sometimes when Ailill in the face of 
peril hesitated, his imperious queen brushed him 
aside and made her will triumphant with words 
of stern reproof and grim resolves such as, 
^^ Coward! .... If you don't decide, I will.'' And 
as in war, so in peace, her statesmanship and 
strength were evident. With a far-seeing power 
of vision she provided for the stability of her 
kingdom by measures of wisdom such as marriage 
alliances. 

Women too, there were whose technical knowl- 
edge of the machinery then used in war and of 
the drill that should befit a champion of the battle- 
field was renowned. One of these entrusted with 
the preparation of the weapons for the Battle of 
Moytura was a woman. This proves that long 
before the feminine element became important in 
the Great War of 1914 as makers of munitions 
the Irish relied on the ability of women to fashion 
war's engines of destruction. A certain Eachtach 
was so conversant with the use of weapons that 
she braved the prowess of Finn himself and 
matched her skill against his by the '^ music of 

[21] 



The Women of the Gael 

her round spears.'' And the men of Ireland 
honoured her for her military science by a dis- 
tinguished burial place at her death. Then there 
was Giachni who ^radiated beauty' yet feared not 
to expose her loveliness to the hardships asso- 
ciated with prominence in the field of battle. The 
mother of Conor Mac Nessa was almost as noted 
as her famous son as a leader of men. Cuchulainn, 
the arch-hero of the Gael, confided himself to the 
tutelage of Scathach for the acquirement of 
special dexterity in the manipulation of arms. 

Missions that demanded the intelligence of the 
counsellor and the courage of the warrior were 
often entrusted to women. They were frequently 
employed as ambassadors capable of being en- 
trusted with messages of high import the exe- 
cution of which often involved much peril. Three 
female runners were part of the official household 
of Finn Mac Cool. Lavercam who was a poetess 
was also an envoy of kings. She with another noted 
envoy had once the coveted distinction of seeking 
for Conor Mac Nessa when deep melancholy 
seized him some lady within the seas of Erin 
whose charms should dispel the heaviness of his 
heart. 

As they were deemed worthy of sharing in the 
deliberations of high councils of state it is no 
cause for wonder that they were intimately asso- 
ciated with the legislative life of the land. They 
were regarded as eligible for the office of brehon 
or judge in a country which demanded rigid and 

[22] 



The Social Dignity of Women 

lengthy preparation for that position. A period 
of study ranging from ten to twenty years was 
required for candidates having judicial ambitions, 
for the mind of the country was decidedly a 
justice-loving one and could not tolerate poor in- 
tellectual equipment in the person responsible for 
the preservation of this virtue in the land. So 
well did women meet the requirements of the na- 
tion in this regard that some of those who were 
privileged to be brehons rose far beyond the com- 
monplace in the execution of their duties and left 
the memory of their names an enduring one in 
Irish legal tradition. The decisions, for instance, 
of Brigh Brugaid determined as precedents in 
law cases in Gaelic courts for centuries. 

But it was as objects of legal solicitude that we 
know most about them. Anyone who consults the 
Senchus Mor cannot fail to realise that they were 
well provided for in the enactments of the 
brehons. This was especially remarkable where 
marriage was in question. Irish women, unlike 
their sisters of Rome and Germany, we are in- 
formed by De Jubainville, retained for themselves 
their marriage dowry and thus provided them- 
selves with a check on masculine tyranny. When 
her life partner was so unfortunate as to have 
no property the housewife was the ruling one in 
the home. Sometimes a less appreciable disparity 
between the possessions of wife and husband was 
sufficient to give the former control of domestic 
affairs if she had a commanding character. This 

[23] 



The Women of the Gael 

seems to have been realised in the case of Maeve 
who occasionally in anger claimed to be superior 
to her husband. Addressing her lord in the Tain 
she says: 

''A man upon a woman's maintenance 
Is what thou art, Ailill." 

Maeve 's status, however, was not regarded as an 
ideal to be generally aimed at in married life. 
** Marry a wife who is your equaP' is an aphorism 
that tells of the wisdom of being mated with a 
partner who is fitted for one by endowments of 
wealth and character; yet almost in the same 
breath another proverb says **rule your wife,'' 
implying that the law of nature which gives the 
human leadership of the household to the husband 
must not be dethroned. It seems to have been 
the hope of the Gaelic legislator that this basis 
of a woman's marriageable suitability for a man 
whilst not interfering with the proper repository 
of authority should make for domestic concord 
by giving the housewife the right to be consulted 
in all important decisions affecting the home. 
When her property was equal to her husband's 
the wedded pair constituted a council of two 
whose unanimity was necessary for the validity 
of all such contracts. But no matter what her 
possessions might have been there were certain 
contracts into which her husband could not enter 
without her consent. In the Ancient Laws of 
Ireland there is evidence of several privileges 

[24] 



The Social Dignity of Women 

accorded to women independently of their wealth.. 
**And every woman in general/^ says the ancient 
book, *^may give the presents which are men- 
tioned in the book called *Cin' to her poor friends 
every year.'' Besides she could go security for 
others, make loans and entertain half the number 
of guests that fell to the lot of her husband to 
manage at a reception. In a word, the domestic 
rights and privileges of women were such that 
masculine absolutism was a very rare occurrence 
in the homes of ancient Erin for should every safe- 
guard that the law provided fail to keep the evil of 
incurable discord from the family heads, the 
mother was free to separate from the father tak- 
ing with her a fair division of the property. Where 
such procedure was necessary she found in the 
laws several reasons to enable her to obtain 
justice. 

And the care that was manifested for the mar- 
ried woman did not surpass that bestowed upon 
the young lady in anticipation of wedlock. Until 
her heart and hand merited the protection of 
some young man she was completely under her 
father's protection. This was done not for the 
purpose of curbing her personal liberty but that 
paternal care might contribute to the preservation 
of her dignity. For education by fosterage her 
father was bound to provide and when this 
reached completion and her nuptial hour ap- 
proached it was his duty to see that no inferior 
was honoured by her wedded hand. Age of course 

[25] 



The Women of the Gael 

was another important matrimonial factor and 
that advanced years might not prove an obstacle 
to a marriageable maiden custom expected the 
eldest daughter of the family to make her great 
adventure before her younger sisters showed like 
daring. Parents could not neglect her even 
though a younger daughter might possess far 
greater attractions, for in proportion to their in- 
terest in the latter should be their solicitude for 
the oldest who while unmarried was a stumbling 
block in the former's road to nuptial success. It 
has been often objected that parents in Ireland 
seriously erred by artificially made matches at 
the great festive gatherings where the individual 
tastes of the young lady were in no wise con- 
sulted. This seems an unjustifiable assumption 
for there is little positive evidence that the in- 
stincts of romance were not taken into account. 
Parental influence was exerted as far as we can 
judge as a guiding and corrective rather than a 
destructive force. It was there to superintend 
rather than eliminate romance. 

As the system of fosterage attended to the edu- 
cation of the young woman within domestic 
circles so there are grounds for believing that 
the state had public institutions where a more 
complete knowledge was imparted. Back in the 
twilight of the second century we hear of a 
college at Tara, the seat of national government, 
solely devoted to the training of the feminine 
mind. There are records of great female phy- 

[26] 



The Social Dignity of Women 

sicians and lawyers whose proficiency in their 
professions was not with likelihood acquired by 
private tutelage. Even if this were possible it 
is improbable that they would receive govern- 
mental recognition without some official guarantee 
of their ability. Besides, in literature, music and 
architecture there were several accomplished 
ladies who in all probability were educated in 
national institutions. There were many female 
rhymers and harpists who were recognised 
throughout the land at the festive and cultural 
gatherings of the people. In architecture Macha 
showed the might of her brain in such 
distinguished fashion that she is worthy of special 
note. Supposed to have lived three hundred years 
before the Christian era she planned the historic 
palace of Emain after her warrior hand had made 
the throne of Ulster her own. Some idea of the 
spaciousness and splendour of that edifice may be 
obtained from the following description: '^In the 
King's house there were three times fifty rooms, 
and the walls were made of red yew with copper 
rivets, but in Conor's own room, which was in 
the front of the house, and large enough for 
thirty warriors, the walls were inlaid with bronze, 
wrought with silver on it, and carbuncles and 
precious stones, and great gold birds, with 
jeweled eyes, so that day and night were equally 
light therein."* 

* The Romance of Irish Heroines. L. M. McCraith. p. 5. 

[27] 



The Women of the Gael 

It was for such intellectual leadership as well 
as for their strictly feminine graces that women 
were recognised as one of the prime adornments 
of every brilliant scene whether it was legislative, 
literary or festive. In such places they were 
seated with their own people in the special places 
set apart for the representatives of their respec- 
tive tribes. They had also councils of their own 
from which all men were excluded where subjects 
solely relating to the welfare of their sex were 
discussed. Many descriptions of the women pres- 
ent at these purely feminine and mixed assemblies 
have come down to us. In these the writer usually 
takes special pains to depict in colourful words 
the beauty of mind and body that characterised 
the women folk. Emphasis is laid upon their 
Celtic sense of honour, the delicate workmanship 
of nature on their forms and the riot of rich and 
scintillating colour that dwelt in their apparel. 

It is little wonder they were conscious of 
their dignified position and often exulted in it. 
It was only where such conditions prevailed that 
a lady could have the towering self-reliance and 
hauteur of Maeve when chafing under insult she 
sought to match her might with a great warrior 
monarch of her time and supremely humble him. 

"I thought that my high pride of mind and spirit 
Would ne'er recover from this seemed hurt 
Until I should behold red-sworded Conor 
Pale in his death before me." 

[28] 



The Social Dignity of Women 

It was a like spirit that in the Women's War of 
Words prompted the speech of the lady who 
gloried in the race that exalted her, in the family 
of which she was the ornament and in her own 
intrinsic worth for her nation and her lord. It 
was this, which was the basis of the custom by 
which women claimed after wedlock the privilege 
of being still known by that maiden name which 
was the hallmark of their family and clan. The 
nation, indeed, honoured them officially and 
socially and they manifested to the nation their 
answering pride and gratitude. 



[29] 



CHAPTER III 

The Objects of Men's Reverence 

THE Irish woman's sense of self-respect won 
for her deep reverence from the nation: 
that attitude of respect was considerably 
strengthened by the unusual innate bent of the 
Irishman to protect what is worthy and needful 
of his guardianship. Religious, speculative, emo- 
tional, imaginative and aggressively masculine he 
has found in woman food for his spiritual appe- 
tite, for the idealism that haunts him, for the af- 
fectionate impulses of his being, for his hunger 
for the aesthetic and for his craving to protect 
the weak and defenceless. 

It has been said and with much truth that the 
world is as much indebted to Ireland for the 
romantic as it is to Greece for the philosophical 
and Rome for the juridical. It is equally true to 
assert that the chivalrous which is so closely asso- 
ciated with the romantic proceeded in its earliest 
and most conspicuous form from the poetic soul 
of the western Gael. The most primitive serious 
attempt to propound with something like com- 
pleteness, canons regulating knightly conduct is 
traceable to the Celtic race. Chivalry in the old 
Irish tales has an importance that can not be 

[30] 



The Objects of Men's Reverence 

located in the kindred literature of Greece and 
Eome. It has a prominence that brands it as an 
outstanding feature of the Gaelic myth while its 
presence in the classics, may fail to arrest the at- 
tention or at least but feebly challenge it. 

As one of the mainsprings governing the knight- 
ly action of all time has been the idea of service 
born of the lure of the aesthetic, the desire for 
self-sacrifice in behalf of some beautiful human 
being, it is little wonder that the Irishman with his 
vivid conception of the glory that resides in sym- 
metry of form became an ardent worshipper in 
the temple of chivalry. ^^For beauty and amour- 
ousness, the Gaels,'' says an old Irish proverb, 
maintaining that the aesthetic was the principal 
objective towards which its emotionalism im- 
pelled the heart of the pagan Gael. Perhaps in 
none of the literatures of the world is there any- 
thing like the homage which the Irish paid to the 
form which beauty inhabited. Minutely painted 
pictures glowing with the light of an exuberant 
imaginativeness tell the reader constantly of the 
lure there was in human beauty for the Celt. Such 
a description is Cathbad's account of Deirdre 
whose cheeks were 

''Crimson like fox-gloves, and a faultless treasure 
Of teeth like autumn snow, and two curved lips 
Red like red-rowan fruit o'er shining snow." 

Even in a man beauty was adored. This was 
as much part of Cuchulainn as his might of arm. 

[31] 



The Women of the Gael 

In the Intoxication of the Ultonians the warriors 
would not ^^ wound him because of his beauty, '* 
for according to a proverb, beauty as well as 
wealth and worth was cogent enough to transform 
the hatred of an enemy into love. Aye, over the 
very sprites of the viewless world it could cast its 
spell for when Carmun died the hosts of fairy 
hovered over her prostrate form to sing their 
weird laments desiring because of the ^^ delight 
of her beauty to keen and raise the first wailing 
over her/' The aesthetic in fact all over the 
broad face of nature, animate as well as inani- 
mate, appealed to the old Irish. Moy Mel, their 
pagan Elysium, as depicted in the sagas is a be- 
wildering maze of scintillating beauty where 
everything is crowned with loveliness from the 
trees in perennial bloom to the maiden mated with 
all the glories that flesh and blood and gorgeous 
robes can confer. 

Impelled by this idealism men went to great 
lengths to serve the fair sex. Respect for woman 
was part of the knightly vow of Red Branch and 
Fenian heroes. No matter how tumultuous the 
anger that vexed the soul of Cuchulainn, a suppli- 
ant woman could dispel by song or prayer the 
fury that raged within him. He was wont to speak 
of the honour of his wife as one of the dearest 
things in life to him. He considered the *^ pre- 
cedence of his wife over all Ultonia's ladies'' as 
worthy of his ambition as the sovereignty of Erin 
and the champion's portion. He put her highest 

[32] 



The Objects of Men's Reverence 

interests on the same plane as the attainment of 
that pride of position and honour for which his 
soul most hungered. For the mere sake of giving 
pleasure to ladies he oftentimes performed deeds 
of wonder. Once as he was faring to royal 
Cruachan in the west with a gentlemanly instinct 
that is quite modern he executed special feats to 
destroy the monotony of the journey for some 
fair attendants. It was such courtesy which 
doubtless contributed to his being of ** victory- 
loving women beloved. '* Men were prepared to 
go to any extreme, even to the point of losing their 
lives for the sake of a lady^s fair regard. Witness 
the promise of love of the diplomatic Findabair, 
daughter of Maeve, forging battle-fury in the 
hearts of heroes in an episode of the Tain. The 
very terms they used when speaking of their wives 
told of a striking delicacy of attitude towards 
women in an age of untamed prehistoric vigour. 
When Goll bade farewell to his wife he spoke 
of her as the ** clear one of rosy cheeks" and 
** gentle one of red lips" whose soulful songs 
coming from the **red mouth that was musical" 
so often brought peace to his heart. 

Not only did men act through this inspiration 
with special zest under the impulse of duty or 
politeness but they sometimes seemed neglectful 
of patriotic and other principles when seized by 
its intoxicating influence. Cuchulainn himself 
who was always so unswerving on the path of 
honour momentarily neglected his staunch loyalty 

[33] 



The Women of the Gael 

to his beloved Uladh out of tender feeling for 
Maeve. With diplomatic acuteness she pitted his 
sense of chivalry against his warrior zeal for 
Ulster appealing to him to shield her retreating 
army even though it was his foe, and she proved 
victor. At the Feast of Bricriu the very ring of 
the contending voices of women was capable of 
generating in a warrior band a lust for battle 
that was more instinctive than rational. With 
aimless rage they swung their mighty swords and 
dealt stout blows to one another knowing no 
prompting motive save that in some confused way 
they felt their ladies grieved. Their passionate 
tumult seemed a natural responsive echo to the 
excited cries of their women folk. It was this 
spiritual chivalry too, which gave the Gael the 
idea of making mortal man seek a fairy lover 
whom in defiance of nature's dictates and manly 
tradition, he should be content to recognise as his 
superior within his homestead. 

When these canons of chivalry were violated 
by a man, popular sentiment marked him out as 
fated for bitterness. A standard example of the 
curse thus supposed to fall upon the erring one 
was that which overtook the whole province of 
Ulster for a display of serious rudeness towards 
a lady. The blight of a perennial malediction 
rested on the Ulstermen for forcing Macha in her 
travail to vie in speed with a racing chariot. Thus 
was a tradition embedded in ancient lore that a 
periodic debility overcame the inhabitants of a 

[34] 



The Objects of Men's Reverence 

whole province for want of gentleness to a woman 
that it might be a signal warning to all the land 
that m the sanctum of the Irish heart the fair 
sex held a shrine protected by most precious safe- 
guards and any serious slight offered to its 
dignity would be punished as a sacrilege before the 
high altar of the national honour. 

But the nation went still further along the way 
of idealism when paying its homage to women. 
She was given an honoured niche within the 
temple of the national cult where the most sacred 
and symbolic treasures of the race were guarded. 
Men saw in her so much of the wine of national 
inspiration and realised that she embodied in an 
emphatic manner so much of what was character- 
istically Celtic that they elevated her to the realm 
wherein she became the mystic and luminous 
symbol of their land and the pure, white, delicate 
object of the amourous cravings of all patriotic 
spirits. 

Some samples of these mystic imaginings are 
worthy of production here. When Niall, son of 
Eocaid, in the daring of his heart went through 
the ordeal of accepting a kiss from a mysterious 
hag of dreadful mien his courage was repaid by 
a most pleasing change in the appearance of this 
creature. The hideous form that confronted him 
vanished, supplanted by that of a maiden of sur- 
passing loveliness. The wonderful metamorphosis 
was seemingly effected to convey the lesson that 

[35] 



The Women of the Gael 

those who wish for the cherished affection of the 
great lady, Eire, whom this figure symbolised, 
must shirk no horrors for her sake. **I am the 
sovereignty of Erin, ' ' said the new wooer of Niall. 
She is described as having *Hwo blunt shoes of 
white bronze between her little snow-white feet 
and the ground. A costly full-purple mantle she 
wore, with a broach of white silver in the clothing 
of the mantle. Shining pearly teeth she had, an 
eye large and queenly, and lips red as rowan- 
berries.'' 

Other striking evidence exists of the use of 
woman as a symbol of Ireland. The ancient 
name of Ireland is identical with that of a mythical 
goddess or queen and the attributes of this lady 
have frequently been applied in mystic language 
to that country. This fascinating conception has 
roamed through the souls of poets and called 
forth the fine-frenzied expression of their visions 
for centuries. Some of the most heart-searching 
verses of the land have had this tender mysticism 
as their highest and most enduring note. See 
what passionate tenderness lives in the lines of 
Fergusin's Cean Duv Deelish, symbolic of Ireland, 
as they tell of the pure fire of the patriot lover 
for the Dear Black Head. 

' ' Put your head darling, darling, darling, 
Your darling black head my heart above ; 
mouth of honey with the thyme for fragrance, 
Who with heart in breast could deny you love ? 

[36] 



The Objects of Men's Reverence 

many and many a young girl for me is pining, 
Letting her locks of gold to the cold winds free, 
For me, the foremost of the gay yonng fellows, 
But I ^d leave a hundred, pure love for thee. ' ' 

Look at the exquisite intermingling of wrestling 
sorrow and buoyant hope that subsists beneath the 
glowing passion of Shiela-Ni-Gara, the songful 
symbol of Ethna Carbery. 

Shiela-Ni-Gara, it is lonesome where you hide, 

With plovers circling over and the sagans spreading 

wide, 
"With an empty sea before you and behind a wailing 

world. 
Where the sword lieth rusty and the banner blue is 

furled. 

Is it a sail you wait, Shiela? Yea, from the westering 
sun. 

Shall it bring you joy or sorrow? Oh ! joy gladly won. 

Shall it bring peace or conflict? The pibroch in the 
glen 

And the flash and crash of battle round a host of fight- 
ing men. 

Green spears of hope rise round you like grass blades 

after drouth 
And there grows a white wind from the East, a red 

wind from the South 
A brown wind from the West, Agra, a brown wind from 

the West — 
But the black winds from the Northern hills — ^how can 

you love it best? 

[37] 



The Women of the Gael 

Said Shiela-Ni-Gara, ' ' 'Tis a kind wind and true, 

For it rustled soft through Aeleach's halls and stirred 

the hair of Hugh 
Then blow wind and snow wind ! What matters storm 

to me 
Now I know the fairy sleep must break and set the 

sleepers free." 

Thus have writers thought in prose or sung 
in poetry from the earliest historic days of 
Ireland's story until the present time. This note 
of inspiration has been especially distinct after 
the Anglo-Norman invasion in the Jacobite songs 
of the eighteenth century and the meditative 
verses of the nineteenth and twentieth century 
Celtic Eenaissance literature. These periods 
have been remarkable for a resurgence of Celtism 
and it is noteworthy that the prominence of 
woman as a symbol should have entered so in- 
timately into the warp and woof of literary 
thought in its typically racial phases. We shall 
present to the reader one more example of this 
symbolic verse and we believe ourselves pardon- 
able in doing so, for it is one of the most recent 
and sublimely inspired poems of that type that 
has yet appeared. It comes from the pen of 
Joseph Mary Plunkett who in Easter Week of 
1916 gave his life for Ireland. Its intense per- 
sonal feeling and apparent note of destiny exalt 
its literary qualities to the level of first class 
poetry. Addressed to Cathleen Ni Houlihan, its 
title is The Little Black Eose shall be Eed at Last. 

[38] 



The Objects of Men's Reverence 

''Because we share our sorrows and our joys 
And all your dear and intimate thoughts are mine 
We shall not fear the trumpets and the noise 
Of battle, for we know our dreams divine, 
And when my heart is pillowed on your heart 
And ebb and flow of their passionate flood 
Shall beat in concord love through every part 
Of brain and body — ^when at last the blood 
O'er leaps the final barrier to find 
Only one source wherein to spend its strength 
And we two lovers, long but one in mind 
And soul, are made one only flesh at length ; 
Praise God if this my blood fulfils the doom 
When you dark rose, shall redden into bloom." 

There is yet another department of Irish tra- 
dition which cannot be neglected in dealing with 
the process of Gaelic idealism of woman; that is 
fairy lore. In this there is abundant material 
whence the student of folk-lore may extract the 
most honeyed thought relative to the adoring 
attitude of the Irish towards the feminine world. 
The realm of spirits is peopled with attractive 
maidens who combine the sublimity and winning 
elusiveness of creatures of intangible essence with 
most human attributes. Woman is spiritualised 
in them without being dehumanised. 

From the misty land of immortal beauty came 
these spirit-maidens to woo the souls of men. One 
of the most fascinating of all spirit lovers in all 
literature is Etain the Beloved. With beauty of 
form transcending far the best that earth could 
boast of, she came to make a certain Midir a 

[39] 



The Women of the Gael 

prisoner in the net of her loveliness. With 
promises that were seductive, bnt pure, she told 
him that with her he would find all that was fairest 
in colour, most enduring in joy and attractive in 
melody in the mystery land whence she came. * * O 
fair one, wilt thou come with me,'' she said, *Ho 
a wonderful land that is mine, a land of sweet 
music; there primrose blossoms on the hair, and 
snow-white the bodies from head to toe. There no 
one is sorrowful or silent; white the teeth there, 

black the eyebrows the hue of the fox-glove 

on every cheek.'' Her appeal proved resistless. 
Bound together in deathless bondage with a 
silvery chain between them the amorous pair left 
the land of Erin in the transfigured shape and 
grace of two white swans for the scenes of their 
paradisal honeymoon. 

The same lady in the History of Ailill and 
Etain, won the heart of Eochaid, King of Ireland. 
Here, too, despite her spirit nature she was Irish 
and feminine for she loved the monarch for his 
skill as a raconteur and the splendid symmetry of 
his form. Strong and resistless as the growing 
strength of a hurricane was the affection this fairy 
lover aroused within Eochaid. Its limits were 
unknown, its power almost effaced individuality 
and the end towards which it tended was the ec- 
static freedom of the spirit. In the quaint, pithy 
and fanciful concreteness of the olden writer it 
was ** deeper every year .... endless like the sky 
a battle against a shade a drowning in 

[40] 



The Objects of Men's Reverence 

water . .. a course to heaven .... a love to an 
echo. " We wonder not at this love-distress of the 
King when we read the rapturous description of 
Etain in the Destruction of Da Derga's Hostel. 
Her beauty gleamed with the purity of azure skies 
and the cold glory of a northern landscape. 
** White as the snow of one night were the two 
hands .... and as red as fox-glove were the two 
clear-beautiful cheeks. Dark as the back of a stag- 
beetle the two eyebrows. Like a shower of pearls 
were the teeth in her head. Blue as a hyacinth 
were the eyes. Eed as rowan-berries the lips .... 
The bright radiance of the moon was in her noble 
face: the loftiness of pride in her smooth eye- 
brows : the light of wooing in her regal eyes .... 
Verily of the world's women 'tis she was the 
dearest and loveliest and justest that the eyes of 
man had ever beheld."* 

Spirits other than messengers of love were 
also pictured as women. Death was represented 
by an optimistic people as a beautiful maiden 
stripped of everything that might be forbidding 
and clothed with the richest tints of fancy. In 
reality she was regarded as an envoy of veiled 
love for the happy nature of the Celt always be- 
held the brightness of God's smile behind the 
darkest clouds of life. There is every reason to 
believe that he looked with eyes of affection on 
the messenger who came to lead him through the 
dark way to the glory of the unseen world with 

* Revue Celtique. Vol. 22. pp. 15-16. 

[41] 



The Women of the Gael 

whicli in spirit he was so familiar. It was to Moy 
Mel he hoped to go whether the entry thereto was 
through the gates of life or death. Once arrived 
there, no matter how he journeyed thither, unfail- 
ing life was to be his. Whether the lure of beauty 
or the voice of death called him to the Isles of the 
Blessed, *Hhe Land of Women," the personage 
who accompanied him thither was always a maiden 
whose soul spoke of love in the mystic land where 
the best of his race should receive its supreme 
reward. 



[42] 



CHAPTER IV 
Feminine Moeauty in Pagan Days 

BEFORE we leave the days of heroic story- 
one of the brightest features of that epoch 
must claim our attention. The flower of 
highest grade in the garden of Irish womanhood 
has yet to display its glory to us. That flower is 
the splendid fealty of the women of the ancient 
Gael to moral principles. 

Some sayings exist which are indicative of the 
Irish feminine sense of moral honour, and the Gael 
seldom elevated a dictum to the plane of a proverb 
which he did not regard as capable of verification 
in his national life. It was for him as rationally 
sacrosanct as an axiom for *4t is impossible to 
contradict a proverb.*' Some of these treasured 
sayings we will quote. One of them makes purity a 
woman's prime asset, for, it states that ** modesty 
is the beauty of women." The other synthesises 
the glories of a woman as embracing a ^* proud 
spirit, ' ' a spirit that accepts no dishonour, as well 
as physical shapeliness. 

That there was a basis justifying the race which 
formulated such proverbs as applicable to women 
we have every reason to believe. Emer, the wife 
of Cuchulainn, was given premier place in the 

[43] 



The Women of the Gael 

world by Bricriu on account of the goodness of 
her reputation. We have the extraordinary spec- 
tacle of a pagan maiden the daughter of Aengus, 
seeking perfection of continence for she loved 
**the lot of virginity.'* There are instances of 
heroic fortitude and infinite delicacy of conscience 
associated with the preservation of this virtue. 
Fial was said to have purchased death for herself 
through pangs resulting from a sheer sense of 
shame when her modesty was in peril. A certain 
Luaine met a similar fate because of an insult 
offered to her for **she died of shame and bash- 
fulness." A maid named Gile on whom mascu- 
line eyes accidentally fell as she bathed *^died of 
shame and found death in the well. ' ' Eithne, we 
are told, was miraculously sustained in life by the 
true God without partaking of any food, as a 
reward for her purity. When Ailill wooed and 
won Etain another mysterious intervention is sup- 
posed to have saved her when her honour was 
seriously menaced. 

So characteristic was this feminine virtue that 
the greatest in Ireland regarded it as essential in 
a marriageable woman. It was the fidelity of 
Emer to her husband that roused his spell-bound 
spirit from the enthrallment of the fairy Fand 
as with tear-strewn face she besought him to be 
faithful to one who had been loyal to him. And 
he was true to Emer when he remembered that 
one of the arch qualities for which he grew en- 
amoured of her was her love of maiden honour. 

[44] 



Feminine Morality in Pagan Days 

When Art, son of Conn, in a fairy island **fnll of 
wild apples and lovely birds, with little bees ever 
beautiful on the tops of the flowers*' met a 
maiden who captured his fancy and was deemed 
worthy to be his wife she was one *^fair .... in 
chastity. *' Eochaid would not have Etain when 
he sought her hand merely because of her sen- 
suous appeal to him; he demanded that she have 
steadfastness and honour. ^^With thee alone will 
I live,'' he exqlaimed, ^^so long as thou hast 
honour. ' ' 

So sacred, indeed, did women deem the mar- 
riage bond that rather than be untrue to their 
wedded lords they welcomed death itself if it 
saved them from dishonour. When the sword of 
Conall Cernach overcame Mesgegra the wife of 
the doomed hero, true to his memory and her 
womanhood, surrendered her spirit to her God 
rather than sacrifice her good name. With a 
mighty effort of soul she rent her heart asunder 
for in the quaint words of the writer she lifted 
up **her cry of lamentation .... and she cast her- 
self backwards and she dead." Even the mere 
memory of a deceased husband was sometimes 
sufficient to force a widow to pay the toll of death. 
This supreme sacrifice was regarded as a fitting 
recognition of the unbounded affection that dwelt 
in the soul of the Gaelic wife for her husband. 
Almu died of grief for the one that wed her and 
the arrows of love were fatal to Etar when she 
saw her dead lord in a dream. 

[45] 



The Women of the Gael 

So highly did the nation value this virtue of its 
womanhood that it ordained grievous penalties 
for those who tarnished it. A grave offense in 
this matter was sometimes deemed sufficient to 
deprive a monarch of his throne. This happened 
in the case of Mac Da Cherda who was considered 
unworthy to preside over his people since he knew 
not how to respect what the people most revered. 
Within the province of Ulster anyone who brought 
to shame a maiden soul had to face the withering 
ire of Cuchulainn for *^ every maiden and every 
single woman that was in Ulster, they were in his 
ward till they were ordained for husbands. ' ' One 
of Ireland's greatest national woes had its origin 
in an insult offered to a woman. Its story is re- 
plete with suffering. The daughter of Tuahal 
of Meath married the King of Leinster. The lat- 
ter, tiring of his wife, sought the hand of her sis- 
ter Fithir under the pretence that he was a 
widower. His base scheme was successful until 
Fithir arrived at his palace. Then learning how 
cruelly she had been victimized she lost her life 
in a sea of shame. But Leinster paid a terrible 
price for the deed. It was compelled to give a 
constant tribute to the Ard-Ri as a penitential 
recompense, an exaction which spelt destruction 
for national solidarity for many a day. 

But punishment for woman's infidelity was not 
always confined to men. If she had been a willing 
victim of crime the law demanded that she suffer 
for her action. Occasionally the wildest barbaric 

[46] 



Feminine Morality in Pagan Days 

wrath was loosed against such hapless creatures. 
To cite but one example, in the Battle of Cnucha 
we find a fierce old chieftain condemning to the 
tortures of the fiery stake the mother of Finn 
whom he adjudged guilty of impurity. 

That the mind of the race demanded and was 
cognisant of this prime adornment of womanhood 
is apparent even in the descriptive passages of the 
tales which are concerned with women and are 
steeped in an atmosphere of purity. The Tain 
presents us with a picture of Fedelm, the fairy 
prophetess, which illustrates our contention. 

*' Folded round her shape, 

A bratt of leafy green, chequered and pied 
Was held by a full fruit-like, heavy clasp 
Over her breast. Her face was rosy bright. 
Her eyes were laughing, blue ; and her two lips 
Were shapely, thin and red. Within her lips 
Her teeth were glistering, pearly — glimmering — 
One might have deemed a white rain shower of pearls 
Had rained in there. Her bright long yellow hair 
Divided ; three gold tresses of it wound 
About her head; another long, gold tress 
Fell round her 

Her nails were trim and sharp and crimson-stained, 
Whiter than snow in one night softly fallen, 
The whiteness of her flesh was, where it shined 
And gleamed athwart her quivering, blown apparel. ' ' * 

There is nothing of the sensual in this but a 
cold brilliancy and richness that is suggestive of 

* p. 94. Mary A. Hutton. 

[47] 



The Women of the Gael 

the vigorous beauty of northern lands rather than 
the enervating glory of southern climes. Though 
oriental in its riot of glistening, bewitching colour 
its rays of influence reach us through a crystal, 
chastening atmosphere. There is something of an 
elemental freshness in it which smacks of the 
wild freedom of Celtic breeses that have no wan- 
tonness but soothing tenderness. 

If an explanation is to be sought for this moral 
rectitude of Ireland's daughters no surer reason 
can be found than their devotion to the principles 
of home life. The domestic circle was the nursery 
where the seedlings of the national oak of Irish 
feminine purity were planted and cared for. 

To verify this we have only to consider how de- 
voted woman was in the old Gaelic home to her 
husband. This is the acid test of feminine domes- 
tic rectitude and the pivotal point round which 
most of the family happiness revolves. Without 
it there is an influence absent which is absolutely 
essential for true family life. 

Over and over again instances of deep matronly 
and domestic instincts can be encountered in the 
heroines of the tales. This sense of domesticity 
shone most clearly in the sense of bereavement 
which women manifested when their husbands 
entered the shadowland of death. Take for ex- 
ample the lament of Crede, so expressive of in- 
curabe loss, when she consigned to the grave her 
life-mate. The simplicity of her words coupled 
with their ebb and flow of repetition produces a 

[48] 



Feminine Morality in Pagan Days 

note of sincerity clearly indicative of great and 
lasting woe. '^Sore suffering and suffering 
sore is the hero's death, his death who used to lie 
by me. ' * The same sentiment is seen in the lament 
of Emer over Cuchulainn when the fatal spear slew 
her valiant lord. Raising a keen over him she let 
the waves of distress inundate her soul and died in 
the clasp of a sea of grief. 

In other respects, also, the importanceof wom- 
an 's household position was apparent. One of the 
qualities of Emer most highly lauded by her hus- 
band was her proficiency in attending to the sim- 
ple art of home business: and Cuchulainn seldom 
praised but what was great and impressive as a 
national asset. The same lady won laudatory re- 
marks from Bricriu for the wisdom that adorned 
her domestic life. In the War of Words we have 
already seen that the cause of feminine agitation 
was solicitude for the happiness of their husbands 
on the part of the women and the belief of each 
noble dame that her lord had no peer in all the 
land. Herein Emer lauds her husband with imag- 
inative exuberance giving him a countenance like 
unto the sun and a soul dowered with a nobility 
that no other mortal possessed. There is a world 
of primitive conjugal affection in Groll when he 
bade his wife farewell. With barbaric crudeness he 
mingled his blood with hers to show how thorough 
and fundamental he believed her loyalty to him 
to be and how in payment for that affection 
no nuptial promises to any other woman should 

[49] 



The Women of the Gael 

ever stain his manhood. The name of the river 
Liffey perpetuates the memory of a woman, Life, 
whose loyalty to her lord was so striking that his 
mourning heart burst in twain as a tribute to her 
fidelity. 

Though we have not been attempting to convey 
the idea that Irish women in the olden days were 
perfect or anything approaching that, we did wish 
to maintain that in what we have produced there 
is evidence of a singularly high moral standard 
in their lives considering the dim beacon of re- 
ligious guidance that their pagan faith provided. 
Furthermore, in the light of this contention, we 
think ourselves justified in believing that the 
facts substantiating moral laxity and disrespect 
for women are not sufficiently weighty to warrant 
a serious attack upon the exalted virtue of the 
fair sex of pagan Ireland. 

In spite of the fact that the tales provide many 
instances of concubinage we must admit that it 
was mainly prevalent in the ranks of the nobility. 
Whilst its presence amongst the common people is 
but very meagerly attested the lofty principles 
governing sex relations are so frequently encoun- 
tered and so soaring in dignity that they could not 
be accounted for, had not the roots of national life 
been embedded in a soil of very considerable prac- 
tical morality. Abduction, indeed, was rather 
frequent, but it was rather the outcome of sheer 
wildness of the primitive spirit that loved bravado 
and acts that tried the soul of courage than a han- 

[50] 



Feminine Morality in Pagan Days 

kering for things that were sensual. Besides, with 
the seizure was always intertwined a fight for the 
honour of the smuggled woman which proved the 
battling mettle and uprightness of the defending 
party as well as the unrestrained spirit of the 
abductor. Aodh, for instance, in the Abduction 
of Eargna, roused by the banter of Finn fought a 
fierce dual with Conan who sought by violent 
means to woo a maiden. 

Hence we cannot accept Pflugk-Hartung's 
statement that *^the position of the wife and 
daughter ' ^ in ancient Ireland ^ ^ was one of supreme 
subjection '* in a moral or a fortiore in a social 
sense. True, indeed, statements hostile in a gen- 
eral way to womanhood are to be found in Irish 
literature but these should not invite serious preju- 
dice against it. Such as these are discoverable in 
all literature and in Irish letters any unfavourable 
attitude they might create should be practically 
eliminated by the vastly superior array of fine 
tributes lined up in support of the ladies of the 
Gael. Besides some of these when contextually 
interpreted do not seem to be uttered in a serious 
mood but were dictated by the racial desire for 
pungent wit and rich humour. 

Just to give some idea of what they were like 
we will produce a few of them here. From a piece 
called Eve 's Lament we take the excerpt ^ ^ so long 
as they endure in the light of day, so long women 
will not cease from folly. ' * This condemnation is 
so vague that it carries with it no special bitterness 

[51] 



The Women of the Gael 

and leaves only the impression of minor deficien- 
cies rather than any damning vices. The com- 
mand rings out ' ' rale your wife, ' ' but this is mere- 
ly equivalent to advocating a preservation of the 
natural social order of the homestead. Perhaps 
some of the most blighting of all anti-feminine 
dicta are those ascribed to King Cormac in his 
instructions to his son Carbery. ** Silly coun- 
sellors,'' he calls all womankind: ** steadfast in 
hate, forgetful of love, on the pursuit of folly, bad 
among the good, worse among the bad. ' ' The con- 
demnatory character of this advice is so sweeping 
and universal that by the very force of its ex- 
aggeration it dispels all likelihood of veracity. 
Another says **do not give your wife authority 
over you, for if you let her stamp on your foot 
to-night, she will stamp on your head to-morrow. ' ' 
This seems bitter until we read in the same text 
** reprove your wife as you would your son or 
your friend:'' then one feels that its harshness 
is only apparent and formulated with a view to 
impress forcibly the need of preserving nature's 
authority in the home. Taking, then, evidence 
as a whole into account there seems to be vastly 
more truth in the words of M. Gaston Paris when 
he praises that loyalty of the Irishwoman to the 
dictates of morality which would be impossible 
under the slavish conditions imposed upon her by 
Pflugk-Hartung. **The oldest Irish literature," 
says the French Celtist, ** furnishes evidence of 
the fidelity of the betrothed to her lover, of the 

[52] 



Feminine Morality in Pagan Days 

wife to the husband and of the widow to her dead 
mate, whom she laments and to whom she remains 
faithful.''* There were dark spots in the sun- 
light of Irish pagan morality as in everything on 
earth but the gloom they induce was of little ac- 
count when compared with the brilliancy that en- 
veloped them. 

* Rev. Celt. Vol. 15. p. 407. 



[S3l 



CHAPTER V 

When Saints Weee Numeeous 

LEAVING the golden grey of saga landscape 
we now pass on to scenes more definite and 
historical in feature though scarcely less il- 
lumined by the glorifying aureole of the romantic. 
We go from the glamour of the pagan period to 
the captivating beauty and innocence of the 
neophyte nation newly introduced to the mysteries 
of Christianity. Here we shall behold how when 
the message of the Master ^s Gospel rang out over 
the hills and dales of Erin and the people with 
longing hearts hearkened to its welcome notes, 
the women of the Gael were throbbing with ardour 
for the treasure that had appeared in their midst. 
They furnished some of the most saintly minds 
of the early church and some of the most capable 
spirits that were allied with sanctity in that youth- 
ful institution. 

That greatness of intellect and valuable material 
for citizenship should go hand in hand with saint- 
liness was naturally to be expected. The qualities 
that forged the way towards christian perfection 
were those which were fundamentally neces- 
sary for national wholesomeness. Respect for 
authority, justice, sobriety, self-denial and purity 

[54] 



When Saints Were Numerous 

of life which are always associated with those who 
seek first the Kingdom of God, are the soundest 
pillars of any kingdom that man may construct. 
Their absence can only be justified by materialism 
of outlook and the nation that has only this vision 
is fetid at the core and doomed to an early death. 
Their presence means the controlling hand of 
idealism at the nation *s helm, a force that must 
lead it triumphantly against all brute influences 
into final success. 

This effectiveness of the saint as a national 
factor was especially appreciable in Ireland. The 
dominant note of early Celtic Christianity was 
monastic and this was closely associated with the 
social and governmental machinery that prevailed 
in the commonwealth. The system upon which 
Irish civilisation was erected was that of tribal- 
ism. With the government of the church rigidly 
fashioned after and largely dependent on this it 
was only natural to expect a considerable mingling 
of interest between church and state and a marked 
unanimity of purpose in the pursuit of the ideals 
of both organizations. The limits of the diocese 
which was ruled by a monastic head had to be 
coterminous with those of the tribe-lands. The 
head of the monastery had to be selected from 
some member of the clan so that the bond of 
blood gave him an interest in the temporalities 
as well as the spiritual needs of the people over 
whom he presided. Other affinities existed be- 
tween the ecclesiastical and civil institutions all 

[55] 



The Women of the Gael 

of which tended to make the fire of the love of 
God breeding-ground for the fire of patriotism in 
the sonl of the saint. 

What was true of the tribal character of the 
monastery for men was likewise verified in its 
kindred establishment for women. The convent 
was an intimate part of tribal life whilst the im- 
portance of its inmates was augmented by their 
feminine hold upon the racial sense of reverence 
for woman as well as by its official connection with 
the existing mode of civilisation. Its inmates 
wielded a powerful influence as women of the 
Gael and as Irish saints. 

Though countless numbers of Irish maidens are 
to be met with in the early days of the church's 
history who showed in their lives a sublimity 
worth recording we must content ourselves with 
presenting the few whose careers are in a marked 
degree representative of those of the many. 

To begin with Patrician times we find that some 
of the most attractive episodes in the life of the 
national apostle were based on the guileless char- 
acter and lofty ideals of women. In these first 
fruits reaped by the great reaper there was, as 
it were, a symbolic guarantee of the elevating in- 
fluence which the christian daughters to come 
would wield within the land of Erin. In the 
western part of the country two maiden figures, 
fresh as the flowers of the field and taintless as 
unstained rivulets, were wafted in upon the path- 
way of the missionary as if to refresh his weary 

[56] 



When Saints Were Numerous 

soul and give him the strength of a magnificent 
hope in the christian future of the nation that 
could present such early flowers to the garden of 
the Lord. Of royal birth they were and of royal 
mind as was well shown in their thirst for truth 
and the effusive manner in which Patrick willed 
to satisfy their well-meant curiosity. He was ques- 
tioned as to the nature of his God: he told them 
that He was the Being who would satisfy the de- 
mand of their Celtic natures by the expression of 
his power and grandeur through the energy and 
beauty of all that their senses perceived in the 
spaces of the heavens and the expanses of the 
earth, His God made the rushing waters of the 
river, the light of the sun, the beauty of the sleep- 
ing valleys, the majesty of the adoring mountains 
and the isleted gems of the sea. 

On another occasion the daughter of Daire 
brought an element of romance into the story of 
early Irish Christianity which though earthly was 
pure and merited to be elevated by the i)rayers 
of the apostle to the realm of the supernatural. 
With Patrick always went Benignus whom he 
loved for his innocence and sweet singing and it 
was this youth whose attractions won the affec- 
tion of an Irish maiden. So violent did her love 
for him become that a deadly sickness settled upon 
her. Patrick saved her life, purified her affections 
and directed them into heavenly channels. Her 
passion was terrestrial but untainted and Patrick 
deemed it worthy of transformation into 

[57] 



The Women of the Gael 

supernatural fidelity to the Supreme Lover. Her 
awakening from the spells of worldly love is pre- 
served in verse for us by Aubrey De Vere. 

^ ' One day through grief of love 

The Maiden lay as dead ; Benignus shook 
Dews from the fount above her, and she woke, 
With heart emancipate that outsoared the lark. 
Lost on the blue heavens. She loved the Spouse of 
souls." 

In another woman we are provided with a 
splendid example of that spirit of self-sacrifice 
which is so necessary for working of christian 
principles in the human soul. This was the wife 
of Laoghaire, the High King of Ireland. Though 
the monarch refused to desert the pagan religion 
his wife embraced the new faith and manifested 
her gratitude to the apostle for the gift he had 
given her by a permanent donation to the church. 
^^She bound herself to give a sheep out of every 
flock she possessed each year and a portion of 
every meal she should take during her life to the 
poor of God.^'* A like tribute to the church she 
ordained every property owner in Ireland should 
give. 

That these were not exceptions in their virtuous 
behaviour we know from the testimony of Patrick 
himself. He states that the women of Ireland in 
general displayed a magnificent attitude towards 
the new message of self-sacrifice that he brought 

* Irish Texts Society. Vol. 9. p. 41. 

[58] 



When Saints Were Numerous 

them. He tells how in spite of all opposition they 
unhesitatingly became christians and lived up to 
the teachings of their new faith in the midst of 
temptation. ** Their parents, *' those remaining 
pagans, no doubt, ^ instead of approving of it, 
persecute and load them with obloquy; yet their 
number increases constantly; and, indeed, of all 
those that have been thus born in Christ, I cannot 
give the number, besides those living in holy 
widowhood, and keeping continency in the midst 
of the world.''* 

There is another name which was closely asso- 
ciated with that of Patrick but which needed no 
such distinguished affiliation to enable it to endure 
in history. That is the name of Brigid which was 
held by the premier member of Ireland's early 
saintly womanhood. Her memory is as much part 
and parcel of the national and ecclesiastical tra- 
dition as is that of Patrick himself. Interest and 
pride in her glory is confined within no provincial 
limitations but maintain an equal hold upon every 
section of the country. Her name when borne 
by a woman is regarded in foreign parts as dis- 
tinct a badge of Irish origin as is that of the 
national apostle when its honours a man. 

A potent reason for this universal esteem for 
Brigid is the fact that though wedded to Heaven 
she was never divorced from Ireland. She was 
not that type of saint whose celestial tendencies 
make mental absentees from the ordinary life of 



The Irish Race, Aug. Tliebaud. Quotation, p. 36. 

[59] 



The Women of the Gael 

earth. She was as practical in citizenship as she 
was mystic in religion. 

When the blood of her countrymen became 
stirred and heated for action her love of peace 
and her liberal conception of nationalism inspired 
her to hesitate at no saintly effort that might heal 
wounded pride and introduce serenity where 
serious strife might have been. For this reason 
great men sought her aid. She was visited by 
Conall, son of Niall of the Nine Hostages, who 
sought her protection against his brother Carbery 
whose malice menaced him for the sake of a 
kingdom. With a solicitude that was truly mater- 
nal mingled with an element of rpmanc that was 
mediaeval she covered with her protecting 
presence the troops of Conall as they marched to 
the field of battle. A clash was frustrated and 
the would-be contestants were compelled to depart 
with a kiss of peace whilst the name of Brigid as 
a peacemaker and a benefactor of the policy of 
national unity was universally applauded. 

However where diplomacy failed to adjust a 
dispute on a basis of fairness she was not the one 
to prevent the arms of the warrior seeking a vin- 
dication of principle. On this same Conall for 
whom she obtained peace from Carbery she after- 
wards bestowed her benediction and relying on 
its sustaining power he led his men to triumph on 
the field of strife. In the Battle of Allen a singular 
tale is narrated which, whatever its worth may 
be in the realm of sober history, is decidedly in- 

[60] 



When Saints Were Numerous 

teresting as a medium for the study of the 
national belief in Brigid's local patriotism. Herein 
as a Leinster woman she championed the cause 
of her native province against external aggression, 
and though her action may not redound to her 
credit as a nationalist because of its encourage- 
ment of provincial strife it showed the warmth 
of her tribal sentiments which amongst the Gael 
as a race were the secret of intellectual national 
unity even though they were a stumbling block in 
the way of the organic solidarity of the common- 
wealth. The followers of the 'Neill were waging 
war on the men of Leinster whilst in the language 
of Whitley Stokes * ^ Columbkille and Brigid'^ were 
** heartening, like Homeric heroes their respective 
clans in battle. ' ' As the tide of conflict ebbed and 
flowed, according to the old writer, great was the 
agitation of the saintly scion of the race of Niall 
who feared with a great fear when he perceived 
that the great woman of Kildare was pitted 
against his Ulster clansmen. **Now in that battle 
the mind of Columbkille did not rest or stay for 
the Hy Neill, for above the battalion of Leinster 
he saw Brigid terrifying the hosts of Conn's half . " 
Thus did the popular imagination summon her 
from the realm of the dead to shield the martial 
honour of the province she loved so well in life 
and to match her saintly influence against that of 
Columbkille, the most noted masculine saint of 
Irish stock. 
In more reposeful scenes than these Brigid won 

[6i] 



The Women of the Gael 

renown. Ireland in her day was noted far be- 
yond its shores for the hospitality of its people. 
The providing of good cheer for the friend and 
the stranger was long the custom there before the 
coming of Patrick and the monastic usage of 
maintaining a public guest-house did not accom- 
plish a social revolution in the life of the Gael 
but simply gave the sanction of religion to a well- 
established habit. Hospitality was a part of the 
business of the state ; it was the glory of the palace 
and the pride of the humblest home. Brigid as 
the head of a great monastery shone as the dis- 
penser of good cheer and as an entertainer of 
guests. She received with the kindliness native 
to her race men distinguished for spirituality, 
statecraft and various branches of learning whilst 
the sunshine of her comforting smile warmed the 
cold hearts of the poor and the outcast. Kings 
sought her counsel and favour and bishops learned 
wisdom at her feet whilst erring ones went away 
consoled. 

Even for literature she found time despite all 
her responsibilities. A poem in her native tongue 
on *The Virtues of St. Patrick' is attributed to 
her. In prose she is supposed to have written a 
small treatise entitled ^The Quiver of Divine 
Love' and an Epistle to St. Aid of Degill. She 
encouraged others to love letters and by her ad- 
vice and example helped to make the monastery of 
Kildare as remarkable for its culture as for its 
piety. 

[62] 



When Saints Were Numerous 

It is, however, in religion that her supreme hold 
upon the mentality of the Gael is rooted. Her 
name, with that of Patrick and Columbkille, has 
always been accepted as completing that trinity 
of Ireland's greatest saints and as sacred to tra- 
dition as the memory of the most successful of 
national apostles and that of the noblest of the 
Hy Neill who had the most patriotic heart that 
ever beat within the bosom of a saint. Thus have 
the Irish people erected through Brigid an en- 
during memorial in their literature and tradition 
to one of the noblest of their womankind, to one 
who so proudly partook of the work of developing 
the highest aspect of the national mentality, its 
keenness of vision of the spiritual world. Actuated 
by such a desire we find a writer in the Leabar 
Breac paying a rapturous tribute to the surpassing 
mastery of things spiritual (that was Brigid 's 
heritage. ^^ There was not in the world one of 
more bashfulness of modesty than this holy virgin 

She was abstinent, unblemished, fond of 

prayer, patient, rejoicing in God's commands, 

benevolent, forgiving, charitable And hence 

in things created her type is the Dove among 
birds, the Vine among the trees, and the sun above 
the stars."* She was regarded, above all, as the 
national protectress of that virtue so treasured 
by Ireland, purity. In the Felire of Aengus, all 
the virgins of Ireland were confided to the pro- 
tection of Brigid that in her inspiring example 

* Ireland's Ancient Schools and Scholars. Healy. Quot. p. 1S5. 

[63] 



The Women of the Gael 

they might find that feminine nobility necessary 
for the welfare of their souls and the moral sound- 
ness of the commonwealth. 

As an ecclesiastical ruler she also did much to 
make her name endure in the religious traditions 
of Ireland. Many houses of piety outside the 
monastery of Kildare obeyed the Brigidine rule, 
while evidence is not lacking for the assumption 
that she and some of her successors invaded the 
domain of church oJB&cialdom proper to men and 
claimed in some respects the obedience due to 
high dignitaries. It seems very likely that some 
of the Abbesses of Kildare enjoyed marked juris- 
diction within the diocese of that name in things 
that pertained to the episcopal office. On 
the authority of Archbishop Healy we have it that 
^*the lady-abbesses of Kildare enjoyed a kind of 
primacy over all the nuns of Ireland and, more- 
over, were in some sense independent of episcopal 
jurisdiction, if indeed, the Bishops of Kildare 
were not to some extent dependent on them.''* 

And even if all these facts of ancient times were 
consigned to oblivion the vital influence of her 
memory in the world of the modern Gael would 
be quite sufficient to prove that the personality 
from which it emanated centuries ago must have 
been a commanding one. Irish manhood re- 
members her as the acme of glory of its woman- 
hood and it feels stronger and more sanguine 

*Ibid. p. 137. 

[64] 



When Saints Were Numerous 

every day in the face of all difficulties bolstered 
up by the sustaining reflection that the companions 
of its joy and sorrow and ultimate triumph is the 
feminine factor of which Brigid is the spiritual 
and patriotic archetype. Multitudes of societies 
pledged to the support of the twin ideals of faith 
and nationality act under the patronage of her 
protection. Her memory survives in the names 
of a host of parishes and townlands throughout 
the country. Churches, ancient and modern, 
within and beyond the seas of Ireland preserve 
her name. The very topography of Ireland con- 
spires to keep the memory of Brigid ever fresh 
in the soul of the Gael. Her holy fountains strew 
the land where her devotees come in crowds to 
seek her healing power for wound of soul and 
body. In a word all that lives of her in the G-aelic 
memory helps to wield with powerful force the 
hammer that drives home conviction of woman's 
domineering part in the spiritual regeneration of 
the Irish race. It tells too of the need of un- 
swerving adherence to the spiritual tenets of 
Brigid for the preservation of sterling nationality 
for it shows the potency of a woman to help 
that essentially Celtic attribute of immaterialism 
of outlook which has ultimately wrested many and 
many a time the nation from its death grasp, and 
preserved intact its corporate sense of racial dis- 
tinctness and individuality. It is a reminder that 
the nation which for six and a half centuries, 

[65] 



The Women of the Gael 

according to Cambrensis, kept a mysterious fire 
continually burning at Kildare in honour of 
Brigid, has still the fire of admiration in its heart 
for one of its greatest benefactors. 

Another saintly woman who bore a striking 
resemblance to the great one of Kildare was St. 
Ita, the Mary of Munster. Of illustrious lineage she 
proved herself in the assumed humility of her life 
to possess a magnitude of soul exceeding that of 
any of her ancestors. She loved the things of the 
spirit but did not cut herself adrift from the 
mundane things of her island home. She was a 
saint not only for heaven but for Ireland and 
sought to give a spiritual elevation to the tem- 
poral activities of her countrymen. When the 
Hy-Conall clan appealed to her for victory in 
battle, won by affection for her kin and the un- 
sullied honour of her tribe, she girt the clansmen 
around with the conquering weapons of her 
prayers. 

For learning, too, she had a strong desire. In 
the Felire there lives a beautiful hymn of which 
she was the author. It reveals a rare simplicity 
of soul, a touching familiarity of treatment of the 
spiritual and the Celtic tribalism of conception 
which intertwines happily with warmth of feeling. 

' ' Little Jesus, little Jesus, 
Shall be nursed by me in my dear Disert: 
Though a cleric may have many jcAvels, 
All is deceit but little Jesus. 

[66] 



When Saints Were Numerous 

A nurseling I nurse in my house, 

It is not the nurseling of a low-born clown, 

It is Jesus with his heavenly host. 

That I press to my heart each night. 

The fair Jesus, my good life. 
Demands my care and resents neglect 
The King who is Lord of all. 
To pray him not we shall be sorry. 

It is Jesus, the noble, the angelical, 
Not at all a tear-worn cleric. 
That is nursed by me in my dear Disert, 
Jesus, the Son of the Hebrew maiden. 

The sons of chiefs, the sons of Kings, 
Into my district though they may come, 
It is not from them that I expect wealth, 
More hopeful for me is my little Jesus. 

Make ye peace, daughters. 

With him to whom your fair tributes are due, 

He rules in his mansion above us. 

Though he be little Jesus in my lap. ' ' 

And as she loved learning for herself so she 
desired to communicate it to others, and her 
efforts in this respect produced some very notable 
results. To mention but one there is St. Brendan. 
For his early mental development she was 
responsible. Thus was she intellectual mother of 
as masterly and daring a soul as early christian 
Ireland can claim. As fearless of the elements as 
he was strong in virtue he cared not for the terrors 

[67] 



The Women of the Gael 

of the Atlantic. Drawn on by that peculiar desire 
of the Celt to probe the depths of the unknown 
he is credited with being bold and clever enough 
to have probably discovered America by the very 
crude means at his disposal. No doubt much of 
that vigour of mind and manliness was the product 
of the fostering care of Ita and we cannot help 
feeling that if she accomplished nothing else her 
share in the development of Brendan would be 
sufficient to mark hers as a queenly intellect 
donating a good to her native Munster spiritually 
and temporarily that can be measured by no 
miserly calculations. 

In a different sphere from that of Brigid and 
Ita lived and worked Ronnat, the pious mother of 
St. Adamnan. Determining to remain in the 
world she became instrumental in giving to her 
country one of the greatest of its saintly citizens. 
She moulded the infant mind of him who in 
maturity was to preserve for us in the Life of 
Columba that human and fascinating picture of 
his beloved master. But besides that she was the 
indirect means of effecting a social revolution 
freighted with far-reaching benefits for her nation. 
As late as her time the women of the Gael revelling 
in the young vigour of the race oftentimes 
cherished the excitement of the battle-field and 
fought side by side with their men. This was 
without doubt degrading to the feminine nature 
even though it was often inspired by heroic sen- 
timents. It was one of these debasing features 

[68] 



When Saints Were Numerous 

of the custom which was responsible for the action 
of Ronnat which culminated in the elimination of 
her sex from the field of battle. On one occasion, 
when travelling with her son, seeing the harrowing 
results of feminine strife she was stricken with 
horror and pleaded with her child to emancipate 
women. Her request met with success for the 
voice of Adamnan raised in protest won for all 
time exemption from the duty of carrying arms 
for the women of Erin. 

As if to show the sublimity of this task old 
literature tells us that before Adamnan could in 
this respect become the liberator of women he had 
to prove himself worthy by the cleansing force of 
great suffering. Furthermore we are informed 
that Heaven itself took special notice of the prob- 
lem that was his. In Adamnan 's Law in the Book 
of Raphoe there is recorded a supernatural inter- 
ference in behalf of the women of the Gael. The 
story is replete with delicate sentiments towards 
womanhood and insists upon its supernatural dig- 
nity and domestic sacredness. ^* After fourteen 
years,'' it says, ** Adamnan obtained this law from 
God and this is the cause. On Penecost eye a 
holy angel of the Lord came to him, and again at 
Pentecost after a year, and seized a staff and 
struck his side and said to him: Go forth into 
Ireland and make a law in it that women be not 
in any manner killed through a slaughter or any 
other death .... Thou shalt establish a law in 
Ireland and Britain for the sake of the mother 

[69] . 



The Women of the Gael 

of each one, because a mother has borne each one, 
and for the sake of Mary, mother of Jesns Christ, 
through whom all are .... The sin is great when 
anyone slays the mother and sister of Christ's 
Mother, and her who carries the spindle and who 
clothes everyone.'' 

Other individuals to whom we would like to 
devote more space were it available, we must 
briefly mention. About the domestic life of the 
mother of Columbkille facts are very silent. But 
can we not without doing violence to our fancy 
picture the patriotic nobility of Ethne who 
moulded the mind of the greatest saintly worker 
for national honour, tradition and civilisation that 
Ireland has produced. Indeed, no sanctified mem- 
ber of the church in any age or clime could outdo 
the child of this mother in affection for his native 
land. Before Enda founded the noted monastic 
and scholarly institution of Aran he was a rough 
tribal leader revelling in wild forays and blood- 
shed. The sweet and firm influence of his sister, 
Fanchea, robbed him of his rudeness and con- 
verted him into a mystic lover of peaceful ways. 
Several others there were of this calibre to whom 
only a special chapter could do justice. 

Oftentimes not only individuals but even fam- 
ilies possessed striking sanctity and nobility of 
heart. In the lives of the saints and the martyr- 
ologies there are many instances of the collective 
holiness of a high grade of all the girls in a 
family. We read in the martyrology of Tallaght 

[70] 



When Saints Were Numerous 

that the daughters of Baith in the plain of the 
river Liffey were so distinguished for their piety 
as to be honoured by a special festival on the 
second of January when a church was dedicated 
in their honour. Considering the disturbed stats 
of public life the possibility of finding such a 
domestic serenity is little short of marvellous. It 
could only occur in a country where the highest 
respect for the sacrosanct character of the family 
and the fundamental value of its wholesomeness 
for the nation at large overshadowed all inter- 
tribal broils and jealousies. It is noteworthy too, 
that in most cases this type of family was the 
product of woman's rather than man's influence. 
Such splendid replicas of the homestead at 
Nazareth were bound to be not only luminous 
centres of religion but beacon-lights calling the 
nation to safest anchorage within the harbour 
of domestic sanctity. There it would find the 
truest antidote for disintegrating forces and the 
best guarantee of continued loyalty to the dictates 
of its highest self. 

Before parting with the saints we must say 
a word about that virtue of chastity which was the 
very core of their moral and mental greatness 
and the ultimate basis of their usefulness to the 
nation. We have seen at length how even in pagan 
days it was honoured and in this chapter we have 
occasionally seen the glory of its presence 
amongst the early exponents of Christianity. Here 
we would like to dwell on it more at length but 

[71] 



The Women of the Gael 

we must content ourselves with the production 
of a few facts that shall illustrate the rigid 
and oftentimes harsh principles governing its 
maintenance. 

St. Patrick, who usually showed himself to be 
so kind and forgiving, did not think that his 
people should consider him too severe when he 
ordered even his sister, who was accused of sin, 
to be run down near Armagh by his charioteer. 
*^ Drive the chariot over her,'^ he bade him, ^*and 
the chariot went over her three times." Even if 
the historicity of this tale be challengeable its 
preservation in tradition manifests the national 
scrupulousness where this virtue was in question. 
Who has not heard of the violent methods of St. 
Kevin of Glendalough, when he sought to guard 
himself against the attentions of a fair Irish 
Cathleen? We have no reason for believing that 
there was anything gravely immoral in her 
actions, and yet the story did not hesitate to make 
the saint plunge her into the depths of a lake as 
a punishment for her folly. 

In customs as well as in the lives of individuals 
there is evidence of the national delicacy where 
this virtue was concerned. So conservatively did 
the saints treasure woman's reputation that not 
merely monasteries but certain tracts of land were 
declared unlawful ground for feminine footsteps. 
Within the watery boundaries of Inniscathy no 
woman's presence was tolerated. These prevent- 
ative measures, of course, were taken for the or- 

[72] 



When Saints Were Numerous 

dinary woman and should not be interpreted as 
indicative of narrowness of mind and undue dis- 
trust of and disrespect for women. Where the 
sanctity of men and women was of such a high 
grade as to render both parties, humanly speaking, 
immune from grave sin, no wall of exclusiveness 
was set up between them. On the contrary com- 
munication was encouraged, and some of the 
greatest men and women saints frequently met 
und were on terms of intimate friendship with 
one another. There were to be found, even, 
monasteries of such a unique type that close asso- 
ciation of the sexes was a matter of daily life. 
This was due to the fact that the inmates of these 
houses were the first order of saints whose holi- 
ness of life reached a high degree of excellence. 
In these places ** women were welcomed and 
cared for ; they were admitted, so to speak, to the 
sanctuary; it was shared with them, occupied in 
common. Double or even mixed monasteries, so 
near to each other as to form but one, brought 
the two sexes together for mutual edification ; men 
became the instructors for women; women of 
men. ' ' * The Irish were, indeed, severely sound 
but not irrational in their zeal for the noblest 
ornament that womanhood could possess. 



* A. Thebaud. Op. Oit. p. 104. 



[73] 



CHAPTER VI 

Women of Action feom the Ninth to the Seven- 
teenth Century 

WITH the passing of the eight century the 
women of Ireland found themselves in 
the presence of a problem that was en- 
tirely new to them. Hitherto all their activity 
was confined to questions merely affecting their 
nation from within but now there came the men- 
ace of an external force that threatened to destroy 
all the most treasured possessions of their land. 
The first grim clouds of invasion swept down from 
the cold lands of the Northmen over Irish skies 
glowing with the warmth of christian fervour, 
and menaced by their malignant pagan lightnings 
the serenity of the atmosphere created by the 
mating of the doctrines of Patrick with the civ- 
ilisation of the Gael. The new situation furnished 
a striking contrast to that of the golden era of 
the three preceding centuries and was calculated 
to test the most sterling fund of heroism that the 
nation possessed. It was a challenge not merely 
to the local sense of honour of a clan but to that 
common feeling of pride that welded the whole 
congeries of clans into that spiritual common- 
wealth called Ireland. It was an hour when the 

[74] 



Women of Action, 900-1700 A, D. 

the presence of a strong womanhood conld act as 
a mighty leverage to exalt the soul of the people 
above all fear of final destruction. 

That Irish women did not live np to their past 
in the face of this new peril we have no gromid for 
assuming. The records of this period are very con- 
servative in the giving of information about men 
or women but the little they provide when prop- 
erly interpreted shows that the daughters of Erin 
fought a creditable fight. Very little beyond 
obits are mentioned in the annals in the case 
of individuals in the early and mediaeval centur- 
ies and as we know from other sources that some 
of these who are dismissed thus hastily were peo- 
ple of distinction it seems only reasonable to as- 
sert that others for whose fame we have not such 
corroborative evidence were in all likelihood im- 
portant personalities. In a word the mere fact of 
mention in the annals seems the hall-mark of 
distinction for those whose memory is thus pre- 
served. We hope that the reader will keep this 
in mind as an aid towards a sympathetic under- 
standing of the position of woman in the centuries 
that antedate the Tudor era. 

In the Annals of the Four Masters, several wom- 
en of the ninth century are recalled as possessing 
a prominence equal to that of most of their broth- 
ers of distinction if the number of words that com- 
memorate them has any worth as a measure of 
greatness. But besides these we have a few in- 
stances where more lengthy accounts are given 

[75] 



The Women of the Gael 

of the activities of women. In the reign of 
Domnacad, Ard-Ri, a dispute for the sovereignty 
of Munster arose between Cumeide and Ceallachan. 
Things were looking stormy and a bloody clash 
seemed to be impending when the wisdom of a 
woman in council won the day. Keating tells us 
that the mother of Ceallachan travelled from 
Cashel to where the contestants met and besought 
them **to remember the agreement come between 
Fiachaidh Muilleachan and Cormac Cas that the 
descendants of both should alternatively inherit 
Munseer .... And as a result of the woman's 
discourse Cumeide left the sovereignty of Munster 
to Ceallachan. * ' * The fact that the person for 
whom this noble lady pleaded was her son in 
favour of whom she might have been prejudiced 
did not tell against her for her argument was 
founded on justice which the glamour of a throne 
could not force her opponent to resist. 

Into the life of the same Ceallachan there en- 
tered the heroism of another woman. This time 
his enemy was Sitric, a Danish prince, who plotted 
to effect by treachery the death of the Munster 
king. Mor, the Irish wife of the foreigner, hear- 
ing of the scheme saved the life of the intended 
victim by a timely warning. She was wedded to 
her land and kin before all things and she faced 
the wrath of an angry husband rather than see 
them injured. Like her Muirgel, in A. D. 882, 
won fame in dealing with another of the leaders 

* Irish Texts Society. Vol. 9, p. 223. 

[76] 



Women of Action, 900-1700 A. D. 

of the Northmen. This latter lady, the daring 
daughter of royal Maelseachlainn, slew a chieftain 
of the foreigners that her country might get rid 
of a powerful and most troublesome foe. 

In this same period there is evidence of an- 
other kind that demonstrates the loyalty of woman 
to kith and kin and country. Women were made 
the special target of the wrath of the foreigners 
in such a general way as to show that they were 
regarded as a valuable national asset. True, in- 
deed, libertinism to a large extent inspired this 
policy of the pagans but their wholesale deporta- 
tion of women to foreign parts is strongly sugges- 
tive of the Cromwellian anti-racial movement that 
centuries afterwards sent many a cargo of fem- 
inine victims to the Barbadoes. Of the Danes it 
is stated in the Annals of Clonmacnoise that in the 
year 830 * ^ as many women as they could lay hands 
on, noble or ignoble, young or old, married or un- 
married, whatsoever birth or age they were of, 
were by them abused most beastily and filthily, 
and such of them as they liked best, were by them 
sent over seas into their own country there to be 
kept by them to use their unlawful luste."* An- 
other ancient writer with a weeping pen tells of 
the harassed virtue and beauty of those tur- 
bulent days. ^^Many were the blooming, lively 
women; and the modest, mild, comely maidens 
.... whom they carried off into oppression and 
bondage over the broad, green sea. Many and 

* Dublin. 1896. ed. Rev. D. Murphy SJ. 

[77] 



The Women of the Gael 

frequent were the bright and brilliant eyes that 
were suffused with tears at the separation of ... . 
daughter from mother. ' ' ** 

During the next century the goading of the 
Northmen became more venomous and serious and 
yet their augumented tortures elicited only a grow- 
ing resistance from the nation and an increase in 
number of the women who merited special atten- 
tion from the chronicler for pronounced value to 
the commonwealth. For this they continued to 
suffer from the invader. Their hostile incursions 
were frequently unannounced and many a time 
no sex was spared by the ruthless sword of the 
pirates of the North. 

There was one, however, who did not suffer 
for she was conspicuous rather for malicious 
greatness than studied patriotism. Yet we must 
not pass her over for she displayed an ability 
in intrigue and rank- seeking that was out of the 
ordinary even though it wore the apparel of evil. 
Her soaring ambition led her into three provinces 
where in succession she pledged herself in wed- 
lock to Olaf Cuaran of Dublin, Malachy of Tara 
and Brian the Great of Kinkora. It was with the 
last of these monarchs that she manifested the 
greatness of her vindictiveness. Gormlai, for 
this was her name, was a fit companion in sheer 
intellectuality for the able lord of the Dalcassians 
but her duty as a wife was lost in her overweening 
pride. Ill-brooking the vision of her family in 

* Wars of the Gael and Gall. ed. J. H. Todd. London. 1867. p. 43. 

[78] 



Women of Action, 900-1700 A. D. 

subjection even to her husband she inserted the 
poison of jealousy in the heart of her brother and 
made him the defiant enemy of Brian. Impelled 
still further along her serpentine ways and heed- 
less of plighted troth and her marriage vow she 
offered her hand in wedlock to Sigurd in return 
for his aid against the grandson of Malachy whom 
her wounded pride wished to vanquish. Wider 
and wider she spread her tentacles of secret 
scheming until she held within them the forces 
that paved the way for the Battle of Clontarf. 
That conflict drove the Dane from Ireland but its 
benefit was very dubious for on its fatal field fell 
the most statesmanlike and constructive mon- 
arch that the country knew for centuries. From 
it there resulted disputed successions to the sov- 
ereignty of the High King which might have been 
avoided had Brian lived. He would have be- 
queathed to his family a leadership that foes 
might fear to dispute and to his country a sense 
of national government and organic solidarity 
which might have expelled the invading legions of 
the second Henry of England. 

As the trouble-haunted years of the eleventh 
and twelfth centuries wing their feverish flight 
into the silence of the past the little brightness 
that is hidden in them is scarcely noticeable. It 
is a fitful, twinkling light in a wilderness of dark- 
ness and chaotic waters. Yet we have no doubt 
that the tradition of a noble womanhood still en- 
dured and helped to keep within the nation that 

[79] 



The Women of the Gael 

latent strength which manifested itself in days 
of resurgence. Such an item as that which rec- 
ords the death of Bevinn in 1134, who was a fe- 
male erenach of Derry Columbkille, serves to 
strengthen that conviction. The office which the 
lady held entailed responsibility for the manage- 
ment of church temporalities. In the case of 
Derry it must have been especially onerous for 
this was one of the most important ecclesiastical 
establishments in the country. Yet in the midst 
of political distraction sufficient faith in woman 
still resided amongst the people to entrust to one 
of her sex the civil administration of Derry ^s 
church property. Another significant proof of 
the prevailing respect of the Ireland of this time 
for woman's ability came from the pen of Giolla 
Modhuda O'Cassidy, Abbott of Ardbraccan in 
County Meath who died about 1143. This man 
who combined considerable learning with poetic 
powers wrote a History of Women from the earl- 
iest times to his own day. He who had written long 
historical poems on the monarchs of Ireland be- 
lieved the wives and mothers of these rulers as 
worthy of a scholar's attention as the sovereigns 
themselves. His action must have been inspired 
by the presence of a capable womanhood in his 
own time. 

Sweeping onward we find the land imperilled 
by a new invader. This time the stranger gave 
every sign of intending to make himself a per- 
manent dwelling place within the island to which 

[80] 



Women of Action, 900-1700 A.D. 

he had been introduced. The Anglo-Norman had 
arrived and four decades had not elapsed ere he 
began a systematic framing of machinery of gov- 
ernment through which to secure his new posses- 
sions. Unlike the Dane the Anglo-Norman with 
stolid deliberations and methodic action settled 
down almost from the beginning in his acquired 
territory as if it had been the cradle of his race 
and was intended by nature to be his for all time. 
This was something that the Gael had never be- 
fore encountered and its very novelty was a fresh 
tax upon his determination to defend his ancient 
heritage. 

Nothing daunted, the daughters of Ireland re- 
mained faithful and did their part where the fight 
was sternest. When they could, they employed 
all the weapons they had in their armoury of fas- 
cinations to make the trans-channel visitor a sym- 
pathetic member of their national family and 
when success was not assured by such strategy 
they did a lion's share in the work of keeping 
those beyond the pale of conversion from enjoying 
the confidence of their people. When for instance 
the daughter of Hugh O'Connor, King of Con- 
naught, in 1226, was forcibly detained in Dublin by 
the English, we can feel sure that they were not so 
attached to her presence on account of her Anglo- 
phile tendencies. We have to travel but the space 
of another decade to find a Mac Maurice manifest- 
ing his interest in a similar manner in Irish women. 
Occupying the chief executive position within the 

[8i] 



The Women of the Gael 

territory where Saxon writs ran, he thought it a 
necessary imperialist move to keep many respect- 
able women in bondage where their protection was 
very questionable and their nationalist efforts were 
eliminated. 

Despite officialdom, however, the sunbeams of 
Irish life slowly but surely bridged the rampart of 
darkness that prevented the amalgamation of the 
races and the ^ ^ degeneracy ' ' of the ^'superior" 
Saxon was certainly becoming an unpleasant real- 
ity. To check this mingling of ** polluted'^ Irish 
waters with the ^^ limped'' stream of the invading 
flood new methods were strictly urgent. The first 
Edward was an enthusiastic supporter of such 
tactics and in 1295 statutory bayonets were lev- 
elled at the breasts of any who dared to retain 
or acquire anything that suggested Gaelic civili- 
zation. Yet twelve months had scarcely vanished 
before the royal ears could hear the revolting 
news that even an Irish maiden had no respect for 
England's decrees. The deathless song of the 
Coolin which is supposed to date from 1296 is a 
monument in music commemorating the defiance 
hurled at these statutes by a woman. It was a 
high crime and misdemeanour for an Irishman to 
wear long locks. To one who fell under this ban 
the maid in question was about to offer her heart 
and hand when with doubtful love he consented 
for her sake to save himself from Saxon vengeance 
by submitting his locks to the imperialist scissors. 
Such a selfish surrender to aggression she would 

[82] 



Women of Action, 900-1700 A, D. 

not for a moment entertain and prondly told him 
she would have him with his flowing hair and its 
attendant perils, but never with a cropped head 
and Anglicised security. 

The years that ensued saw Edward and his 
statutes little more than a memory whilst their 
would-be prey even of the weaker sex still waved 
the banner of indignant repudiation of things op- 
pressive. English dominion was now rushing to- 
wards the precipice which lay between it and de- 
struction and instead of turning back and becom- 
ing aggressive was striving frantically to check 
the speed of its retreat. To add to its weakness 
there came a king, Edward III, who thought 
France a more satisfactory field for the glutting 
of his martial vanity than Ireland and left his 
subordinates in the sister isle to maintain their 
hold there with little encouragement from his 
royal self. In the midst of these happenings Irish 
women who forced the reticent pen of the chron- 
iclers into eulogy became more and more numer- 
ous. In 1316, Dervorgill, the wife of Hugh 
'Donnell, procured for herself a force of gallow- 
giasses and she did not maintain them for fancy 
manoeuvres or to help the Viceroy. We hear of 
a Darrel 'Donnell in 1343, of whom it was said 
that ^Hhere never was a woman of the tribe who 
surpassed her in goodness ' ' and we feel sure that 
her primacy of merit amongst the daughters of 
Tirconnell was not obtained without very sub- 
stantial service to her clansmen. Within ten more 

[83] 



The Women of the Gael 

years our attention is f ocussed on another woman 
of this tribal stock named Gormlai than whom 
there ^^was not in her time a woman of greater 
fame or renown/' 

Not long after this the English government de- 
termined to reapply the methods of Edward I for 
the purpose of reclaiming the Irish from their 
^* savage '' ways. In 1367 the Statute of Kilkenny 
reaffirmed the policy of proclaiming all manners 
and customs of the Gael illegal. However there 
were ladies who seemed to care naught for its 
sanctions, for twenty years later there is record 
of a daughter of Hugh O'Neill, ^^a lady that far 
surpassed all the ladyes of Clanna Neales, in all 
good parts requisite in a noble matron. ' ' Knowing 
what the past history of that famous clan was we 
can easily imagine that this noble dame must have 
grievously sinned against the decrees that eman- 
ated from the Marble City. Away in the west, a 
scion of the royal house of O'Connor, seemed 
equally heedless of the crusade preached from 
Kilkenny. Her name was Cobhlai Mor and by 
1395 she had established a national reputation for 
herself as a hostess and her mode of entertaining 
was not inspired by any Saxon code of etiquette. 

Further and further away ebbed the tide of 
English civilisation as the fourteenth century 
fared rapidly towards approaching dissolution. 
Then suddenly Richard II burst in upon the re- 
treating waters endeavouring by a display, and 
nothing more, of sheer majesty and power to stem 

[84] 



Women of Action, 900-1700 A. D. 

their progress. Content with this he hastily re- 
turned to England only to hear that the waters 
continued to rise and threatened to engulf be- 
neath them every remnant of foreign dominion. 
To this new avalanche the feminine element 
added impetus and weight. Women continued to 
appear as good practical housewives who re- 
garded it as their prime duty to preserve that fam- 
ily sobriety and sense of hospitality which should 
keep the source of Irish energy and anti-Saxon 
aggressiveness strong and wholesome. There went 
to her everlasting reward in 1421 a great matron 
of Connaught, Mor, wife of Walter Burke, the 
^^most distinguished woman in her time in Leath 
Mogha, for knowledge, hospitality, good sense 
and piety.'' In the same province it is recorded 
there lived in the next generation a certain Celia 
Burke who was the wife of another of the Gaeli- 
cised strangers and ^^was the most preeminent of 
the women of Connaught.'' This preeminence in 
the west at this time was an impossibility unL^ss 
it had been based on hostility to England. A con- 
temporary of these Connaught dames was Cath- 
leen, the ^^old countess of Desmond'' who was 
born in 1464 and continued to live until the leign 
of James I. Her longevity was most remarkable 
but her ability to sustain and surmount suffering 
was equally striking. She traversed faithfully 
all the valleys of affliction through which her fam- 
ily passed and fought for it with unsubdued 
spirit. When the first Stuart reached the throne 

[85] 



The Women of the Gael 

she, who had known days of abundance, Avas re- 
duced to utter destitution. But even then within 
a stooped and aged frame she had a soul of 
adamant. She never lost hope, and carrying her 
weak daughter on her back, she made her final 
journey to the court of James in London where 
she wrenched justice from the monarch in person. 
Whilst her ultimate surrender as a suppliant be- 
fore English sovereignty was regrettable it was 
somewhat palliated by the extremity of her age 
and her loyalty to a family that had now become 
part and parcel of Gaeldom. 

With the destruction of feudal aristocratic pow- 
er through the wars of the Roses there leaped 
into being the dynasty of the Tudors. The new 
house was destined to have vigorous and am- 
bitious monarchs who were well able to manipu- 
late the vast strength which was snatched from 
the prostrate barons. That power was soon di- 
rected towards the reconquest of the Irish lands 
that had been forfeited through domestic strife 
in England. There was instituted a campaign of 
aggressiveness against everything Irish that 
brought untold misery to the people and cul- 
minated in the utter undoing of their polity 
and laws. 

To the elimination of the native government, 
however, the Saxon victory was confined. The 
soul of the land and that vast heritage of tradi- 
tion that went to sustain it remained substantially 
unchanged. And it is our high pleasure to be able 

[86] 



Women of Action, 900-1700 A. D. 

to state that during this period as always, woman- 
hood did its part in sustaining the vital breath 
within the nation. The increased rigour of the 
foreign government and the augmented weight 
of sorrow which it piled upon the Gael did not 
make the tender soul of its womanhood hesitate 
to do its duty. On the contrary, the added bitter- 
ness of the new calvary only found an ever-grow- 
ing number of voluntary victims to court its gall 
and vinegar. Whilst those amongst them who 
had not come into contact with the foreigners' 
wild ways did their part as of yore in sustaining 
by championship of ancient manner and custom 
that spirit bond of nationhood that no tyrant 
steel could sunder. 

Beginning with the bleak and iron-ribbed prin- 
cipality of the 'Sullivan in the southwest we 
find towards the close of the fifteenth century 
its chieftains still deeming their ladies' civic use- 
fulness worthy of considerable remuneration. All 
the standing rent due to the Lord of Beare from 
his crag and rock continued to be given to his 
wife for her idle expenses. A proof of the merit 
that won this hereditary recompense may be wit- 
nessed in the heroism of the daughters of Beare, 
humble as well as great, after the disasters of a 
hundred years had brought red ruin to their prin- 
cipality. When after desperate resistance the 
proud keep of Dunboy fell into the hands of the 
English the staunchness of the women defenders 
brought them the stern revenge of the, enemy's 

[87] 



The Women of the Gael 

sword. ^'Some ran their swords up to the hilt 
through the babe and mother who was carrying it 
on her breast/' says a most reliable writer, de- 
scribing the activities of the foe after the fall of 
the castle. * The hangman's rope, too, did its 
deadly work upon several women with Carew su- 
perintending operations. Those who escaped the 
steel and the strangling noose threw in their lot 
with the brave 'Sullivan in his heroic retreat to- 
wards the North. In this the trials were so exact- 
ing upon the courage and physique of the sturdy 
band of men that some of their bravest were lost 
through lack of staying power. Yet hear what 
O 'Sullivan says of the manner in which their sis- 
ters on the march bore themselves. ^^I am aston- 
ished," he says, **that .... women of delicate 
sex, were able to go through their toils, which 
youths in the flower of age and height of their 
strength were unable to endure. " * 

Moving northward into deep-vallied Munster 
we encounter many a true sister of the women of 
Beare. In 1524 all Thomond knew of a Mor 
'Brien who did her best to keep a buoyant and 
robust spirit within the warlike and the cultured 
in * * an open house of hospitality. ' ' 1548 the wife 
of O 'Dwyer was such an influence within her hus- 
band 's territory that when it sent a payment of 
tribute to the White Knight her consent was vital 
to the transaction. Spenser in Pacata Hibernia 

* Ireland under Elizabeth. O'Sullivan Beare. Dub. 1903. p 156. 

* Op. Cit. p. 173. 

[88] 



Women of Action, 900-1700 A. D, 

dwells regretfully on the * ^ treacherous ' ' action 
of the Lady of 'Brien, Lord of Lixnaw, which re- 
sulted in the death of a certain Maurice Stack. 
That there was perhaps some element of good, at 
least for the Irish, in a deed where the gentle poet 
saw nothing but rampant foulness does not seem 
unlikely when we hear that the victim was a 
*^ worthy subject (more worthy than whom there 
was no one of Ireland birth of his quality.) " 

Crossing into the broad domains of the lord of 
Desmond there is abundance of feminine ability 
and patriotism to greet us. This is especially ap- 
parent in the history of the Desmond family itself. 
As soon as the feudal aristocracy had been crushed 
in England the nobles in Ireland were marked 
out for destruction. But in the latter country the 
great lords had become far more like independent 
Gaelic princes than vassals of any king and hence 
their subjugation was not only a crown but a 
national policy of the Tudors. Desmond was one 
of the greatest of the ^ ^ degenerate " nobles and 
his defeat was a long and tedious business. Be- 
fore that was accomplished many noble ladies 
showed as much prowess in the struggle as their 
lords. 

The staunchest and most distinguished of the 
galaxy of fighting dames was she who was mated 
in suffering glory with the last Earl of that 
Munster house. She stood by him unto the last 
even when the pardon and protection of the 
British Crown was proffered her and when in the 

[89] 



The Women of the Gael 

words of Holinshed ^ * whoever did travel from one 
end of Munster to the other, would not meet any 
man, woman or child, saving in towns or cities; 
and would not see any beast. ' ' It was this sterling 
loyalty to her land and husband that wrung from 
Malbie the bitter statement that she was '^an in- 
famous woman'' and ^^the greatest worker of 
these wicked rebellions on the Pope's behalf" 
and hence was beyond the pale of amnesty. When, 
at last, the Desmond 's sun of hope had set forever 
his Countess braved in futile effort the wrath of 
Sir Warham of St. Leger to get from him a pardon 
for her heroic lord. And that fervent loyalty that 
was hers pervaded the hearts of even the lowliest 
of her servants. We cannot forget Mary Sheehy, 
her devoted maid, who faced the perils of the 
lonely road in those lawless days for her mistress ' 
sake only to find herself at the end of her journey 
in the prison of the Queen's President of Munster. 
Close by Desmond was the chieftaincy of the 
Mac Car thy of Muskerry. Here we are reminded 
of the self-sacrificing Eleanor Mac Cartliy who at 
one time in its history saved the leading house of 
the Kildare Geraldine from extinction. After the 
abortive revolt of Silken Thomas and Henry VIII 
had produced the grim exhibition of six Geraldines 
dangling at the end of a rope on Tyburn Hill only 
one Fitzgerald of that line escaped the royal 
clutches. This was Gerald Fitzgerald, the heir to 
the house of Kildare, who succeeded in eluding 
the royal endeavour to entrap him through the ef- 

[90] 



Women of Action, 900-1700 A. D. 

forts of the noble Eleanor. Taking liim under her 
protection, for he was then bnt a boy of twelve, 
she kept him in Muskerry whilst the arm of a 
Mac Carthy could shield him. When his haven of 
safety in Muskerry was menaced she brought her 
protegee through many perils to the land of 
O'Donnell in the North. Here she married the 
chieftain of Tyrconnell for the sole purpose of 
making the position of the young Geraldine all the 
more secure. But her spouse was faithless and 
realising his treacherous designs upon the boy she 
abandoned him and his unworthy scheming. 
Knowing now that nowhere on Irish soil could 
young Gerald find safety she effected his escape 
to the Eternal City where papal friendship 
shielded him. 

Leaving the Geraldine we transfer our attention 
to the Ormond family. Here woman appears as a 
doer of great deeds and a giver of wise counsel. 
The most illustrious woman in the history of that 
Earldom was the Countess Margaret. In her the 
eighth Earl of Desmond found a life companion 
who shouldered the greater part of his burdens of 
state and disposed of them in a masterly fashion. 
Her husband had many enemies and the aid of her 
vigorous and constructive mind must have been a 
tower of support for him when he sought in spite 
of external aggression to maintain a strong and 
orderly rule at home. That this was at his disposal 
we know from the authority of Campion, the 
Jesuit, who says that she ^^was a rare and noble 

[91] 



The Women of the Gael 

woman and able for wisdom to rule a realm. ' ^ To 
this we can add the tribute of another old writer 
who says that her husband ^^bare out his honours 
and the charge of his government very worthily, 
through the singular wisdom of his Countess, a 
lady of such port that all estates in the realms 
crouched unto her, so politique that nothing was 
thought substantially debated without her ad- 
vice. ' * * Her mental astuteness she was able to 
complement by the weapon of force. She was 
fashioned in such a rugged mould that in feats of 
physical prowess she could put the ruler of 
Ormond to shame and could levy blackmail on 
her neighbours by an armed band that she main- 
tained for her personal aims. 

Yet in the avocations that tell of a finer fibre 
in her character she was not deficient. Moved by 
a feeling of nationalism as well as appreciation of 
the aesthetic she found pleasure in patronising 
the arts. At her invitation artificers crossed the 
seas from Flanders to impart to her people the 
mysteries of the tapestry-making in which they 
excelled. Her admiration for letters led her to 
erect a school where those who hungered for the 
food of the mind got what their souls desired. In 
brief, the life-task which she accomplished was so 
remarkable that her memory is still a vivid and 
prized possession of the inhabitants of Kilkenny 
City whilst that of her husband is dimmed by the 
mist-inducing lapse of centuries. 

* Romance of Irish Heroines. McOraith. Quot. p, 41. 

[92] 



Women of Action, 900-1700 A. D. 

In the neighbourhood of Ormond there are other 
instances of feminine worth that merit production. 
In 1535 there is record of a Janet Eustace who was 
a persona ingrata in the eyes of Dublin Castle. The 
Saxon gave her the hospitality of a prison for ''be- 
ing the great causer of the insurrection of Thomas 
Fitzgerald and of her son James Delahide.'' 
Nearly half a century later an official was deeply 
angered by the sister of Simon MacDavid and his 
anger was due to loyal official reasons. When he 
had arrested her his words were: ''if she do not 
stand by me in steede I mean to execute her.'' A 
little later the wife of Sir Barnaby Fitzpatrick, 
Baron of Upper Ossory, was evidently in sym- 
pathy with the sentiments of an anti-English hus- 
band and for that reason was forced to change 
with his her residence for the most austere apart- 
ments of a Dublin prison, when the Elisabethan 
kidnappers secured for their mistress in the castle 
prison of the Metropolis the youthful Hugh 
Roe O'Donnell the strategy of a woman con- 
tributed to his rescue. This was Rosa 'Toole 
who cooperated with her brother Felim and her 
husband, Fiach O 'Byrne, in the liberation of the 
young chieftain of Tyrconnell. The work she par- 
ticipated in, cost England many a man and dollar 
and gave Ireland one of the most efficient and pic- 
turesque of its leaders. 

How bitterly the minions of England regarded 
these activities of the womenfolk in this part of 
Ireland may be estimated by their savage treat- 

[93] 



The Women of the Gael 

ment of many of their sex. The sword and stran- 
gling rope were used unsparingly to crush this very 
unbecoming spirit in the souls of Irish ladies. It 
was regarded as an effective way of procuring the 
extermination of the race as well as of telling 
women that their traitorous guilt was equal to 
that of men. Coote, a true son of the infamous 
President of Connaught, amused himself at Black- 
hall, Kildare, according to the author of Cam- 
brensis Eversus, by massacring women and trans- 
fixing their infant children on their breasts. He 
liked to dispatch the child with the mother for it 
was one of his principles of political philosophy 
that '^a bad crow from a bad Qgg^^ was an in- 
dubitable law of nature. On one occasion he 
committed to the rope a noble lady who was his 
host and taking the unborn babe from her womb 
strangled it by the hair of the martyred mother. 
He had an eminent rival in butchery in Cosby, 
governor of Leix, who resorted to similar methods 
for the civilisation of the wild Irish. 

As we direct our vision from the Southwest 
to the land of Owen and Connell in the North 
where the Gael by the shield of his might saved 
the sanctuary of his ancient heritage until tlie 
bitter end from the sacrilegious legions of 
Elisabeth, we cannot but expect to find some 
staunch defenders of his strongest fortress 
amongst the ranks of women. Knowing how thor- 
oughly the government at London set itself to in- 
ject an English mind into the great Hugh of 

[94] 



Women of Action, 900-1700 A. D. 

Tyrone and how for a time it seemed to liave par- 
tially succeeded we cannot but feel that if his wife 
was influential in his home she must have con- 
tributed to the strength of his grim resolve when 
he challenged to the combat all the forces of 
England. But we know from the confession of an 
English official that his wife was Mary O'Neill 
*^the Lady ... by whom he is most ruled'' and are 
not therefore basing our former conclusions on 
premises of imaginary origin. Speaking of the 
O'Neills reminds us of another lady, the wife of 
Nelan 'Neill, who was one of the official plenipo- 
tentiaries engaged to settle the disputes between 
her husband and the 'Neill. Then there was the 
lady of the famous Thurlugh Lynagh O'Neill who 
was a very worthy partner of the stout old chief- 
tain. She stood staunchly by the side of her war- 
harassed husband where her ability won for her 
special attention from English officialdom. Malby, 
from the security of the land he had conquered, is- 
sued an ominous warning to his government lest 
her leadership might make his subject province an 
unsafe place for Englishmen. His words were that 
''she had already planted a good foundation, for 
she in Tyrone, her daughter in Tyrconnell, and 
Sorley Boy in Clandaboy, do carry all sway in the 
North and do seek to creep into Connaught. ' ' * 
She was evidently the master mind not only within 
her own domains but of an alliance that held in its 
grasp the power of a province. 

* O'Grady. Cat. of MSS in British Museum, p. 404. 

[95] 



The Women of the Gael 

Close by in gallant Tyrconnell were Mgh-sonled 
dames who bade fair to ontdo their sisters of 
Tyrone in the service of Uladh. Queenly and true 
loom forth the figures of Ineen Duv, the mother 
of Hugh Roe 'Donnell, and her daughter, Nuala, 
who aided in masterly fashion the young eagle of 
the North to hold for many a year in his mighty 
talons his native territory against overwhelming 
odds. Ineen was Scotch by birth, being the daugh- 
ter of the Lord of the Isles, but was Gaelic by des- 
cent from the race of CoUa Uais and was certainly 
loyal to her ancient blood when she heard its call 
in the land of Connell. Her advice was ever valued 
by her able son and many a time befriended him 
in the hour of need. When the dauntless Hugh 
left the warders of Dublin prison wondering how 
the elusive chieftain had escaped from their toils 
and in his native Tyrconnell summoned his people 
together for a conference on questions vitally af- 
fecting their destiny, his mother was one of the 
dominant counsellors of the assembly. She clari- 
fied their deliberations by the logic of her argu- 
ments and by pointing out to them the severe and 
hoxiourable path of duty she added by her display 
of fortitude to the unyielding attitude of their 
resolute souls. As the olden writer puts it * 4t was 
an advantage that she came to the gathering, for 
she was the head of advice and counsel of the 
Cinel-Conail, and though she was slow and very 
deliberate and much praised for her womanly qual- 
ities, she had the heart of a hero and the soul of a 

[96] 



Women of Action, 900-1700 A, D. 

soldier, inasmuch as she exhorted in every way 
each one that she was acquainted with, and her 
son especially, to avenge his injuries and wrongs 
on each one according to his deserts/' That she 
could face the sterness of war as well as the en- 
tanglements of the council-chamber we know from 
the fact that she fought against a son of 'Donnell 
by a former wife on whom in the interest of her 
own children she inflicted a defeat. For such 
emergencies as this she had always ready at hand 
a mixed force of Irish and Scots. And her daugh- 
ter, Nuala, had been so apt a student in the school 
of her mother that all through life she never wav- 
ered in her devotion to the cause that was so dear 
to the heart of Ineen. She fought for it while a ray 
of hope shone over it, and she went with it 
into exile in 1607 when that sorrow-laden ship 
brought the best that Ulster had to the land of the 
stranger. 

Eer we part with the days of Elisabeth, so often 
called spacious, and certainly so characterised by 
vastness in the ruin which it measured out to the 
polity and civilisation of the Gael, we must pay 
our respects to the greatest Irish lady that ever 
maintained the honour of her race against the 
Lady of Windsor. This was Grace O'Malley, 
^ * Grainuaile, ' ' the glory of Connaught and the 
most abiding and absorbing subject of song and 
story in the West since the days of Maeve. 

When we think of Grace we primarily associate 
with her name things dared and done on the sea. 

[97] 



The Women of the Gael 

Belonging to a clan wMcli was noted for centuries 
for its love of the wild waves, Grace, though a 
woman resolved to maintain this primal attach- 
ment of her ancestors. This decision gave to the 
'Malley tribe as distinguished a sea leader as its 
history could unfold. Soon she found herself at 
the head of a little fleet that for many a year 
under her captaincy was to rule the wild seas 
off the western coast with as free a hand as the 
winds that buffeted them. With her three galleys 
and two hundred fighting men, the terror of her 
name entombed more lightnings for unwelcome 
intruders upon the Connaught coast than did that 
of her husband, Eichard-in-Iron Burke, for *^she 
was as much by sea as by land more than Mrs. 
Mate with him.'^ Sidney expressed in 1575 his 
dislike of her when he condemned her to Elisabeth 
as *^a terror to all merchantmen that sailed the 
Atlantic." Her galleys were, no doubt, an un- 
welcome vision for Saxon merchantmen out for 
the destruction of Irish commerce and the de- 
velopment of British imperialism on the seas. 
Such as thwarted that nefarious work were surely 
pirates in English eyes, though the orbs that saw 
in them this malice belonged to the greatest robber 
mariners of those days. But, then as now, what 
was virtue in the Saxon was crime in the Gael. 
However, Grace could boast that no English buc- 
caneer ever forced her to land. Day and night 
she kept vigil over her fleet, for tradition has it 
that, even in her hour of rest, in her castle tower 

[98] 



Women of Action, 900-1700 A,D. 

in Clare Island, a cable through a shaft in the wall 
was always at hand to summon her to her ships. 

As the might of Elisabeth had little terror for 
her in her native West, so it failed to awe her in 
the very palace of the English Queen. It is said 
that she once paid a visit to London, where she 
interviewed her Brittanic Majesty. On this oc- 
casion the lure of an English title was held out 
to her in the hope that she might forget that she 
was Grace O'Malley and be henceforth the loyal 
and exalted Countess of somewhere. Grace knew 
her own dignity and duty, and did not hesitate to 
inform her would-be benefactor that she would 
never be the titled servant of another and that the 
position she enjoyed as Lady Chieftain of the 
O'Malleys was as royal and orthodox as that which 
Elisabeth herself could claim. 

With Grace O^Malley we part for the present 
with the heroines of Ireland. They fought a splen- 
did fight and the sun of their lives set in glory 
with the dying Irish state. If they did not succeed 
in keeping brehonism in the land and the law of 
Saxondom away, they kept alive what created 
brehonism and Irish civilisation, the dauntless be- 
lief of the people that they had an immortal na- 
tional soul that sooner or later would resurrect 
their departed polity over a land free to mould 
its future as it willed. 



[99] 



CHAPTER VII 

Virtuous and Noble feom the Dane to Elizabeth 

WHEN last we dealt with those character- 
istics which are peculiar to noble woman- 
hood we were pondering on centuries of 
luminous virtue unchallenged by little that was 
hostile. So numerous were those who then sought 
moral perfection that they created not merely 
within their own individual souls but also within 
the nation an atmosphere of religion that con- 
tributed all the advantages of a nursery to every 
single flowering of virtue. It is true that the com- 
mon resultant of a highly standardised Christianity 
was the product of individual effort, but this 
should not lead us to forget that once this atmos- 
phere was created, it had powerful reactionary in- 
fluences upon each wayfarer along the path of 
the christian life. The exalted public sense of the 
beauty of a strictly christian life furnished a 
strong incentive for individual hunger for virtue, 
whilst it eliminated many possible factors that 
might militate against it. 

But the centuries that succeeded the golden age 
of the saints introduced factors that were to with- 
draw many of the elements that hitherto made 
noble living relatively easy. The clear skies that 

[100] 



Virtuous and Noble from the Dane to Elizabeth 

gave the warmth of their sun-lit features to flower- 
ing virtue were to be veiled by many a darksome 
cloud girt round by chilling blasts. Foreign ag- 
gression was to throw the shadow of its ugly head 
above the untroubled horizons of Gaelic Chris- 
tianity, and prove by its unwholsome presence 
whether the ideals that Patrick brought were 
merely hot-house plants or robust growths capable 
of withstanding adverse atmospheric conditions. 

That they withstood, if not with consummate 
success, at least with a degree of victory that was 
unique, the hostile elements encountered, is a fact 
in the history of the nation at large that there is 
no denying. And as women as an integral part of 
the nation inevitably participated in the triumph 
of the whole there is no need to prove their con- 
tinuity of noble living by citing endless numbers. 
We will only endeavor to unearth the prominent 
ones with a view to procuring material for a con- 
clusion relative to type and the standard of 
wholesome living maintained by the whole femi- 
nine section of the nation. That that brand of 
virtue continued to be of a very elevated and 
unique type we believe to be the case. 

In the period we are considering, the evidence 
in general of the native records bears rare and 
inappreciable testimony to moral decline in 
womanhood whilst it provides abundant proof 
of sterling loyalty to moral principles. Where 
slurs are cast on the good name of Irish women 
the sources are usually so prejudiced that they 

[lOl] 



The Women of the Gael 

merit little respect. Besides, the few black sheep 
of genuine wickedness that are met, there files in 
far-surpassing numbers the fair ones with clean 
and snow-white fleeces. Throughout the march of 
the centuries good and true noble souls greet us 
like so many stellar glories flashing their hopeful 
gleams into the hearts of the oppressed and con- 
veying to them the exhortation to be steadfast 
till the storm-swept skies became fair again. 

Starting with the period of Danish incursions 
we behold a veritable reign of terror launched 
upon all that was peaceable and good. Churches 
were plundered, schools destroyed and families 
slaughtered in cold blood. Society was thrown 
into a state of violent disorder and the peace 
that nourished pious and noble life was menaced 
on every side. Yet despite this chaos women of 
highly christian and refined calibre are often men- 
tioned in the annals as the product of the ninth 
century. As disorders thickened in the years that 
ensued, ladies of this type became more numerous. 
With rare exceptions those recorded were of noble 
rank and of a nobility of mind that was an orna- 
ment to their positions. One of these, Gormlai, in 
the tenth century, was a queen in dignity and in 
heart. Her conjugal fidelity was so impressive 
that it caused the old writer to give an unusually 
elabourate account of her. A way of thorns was 
her progress through life, but her sorrows only 
served as a foil to set oif the tenderness and 
strength that her soul enshrined. She had to 

[102] 



Virtuous and Nohle from the Dane to Elizabeth 

lose the companionsliip of the princely and noble 
Cormac Mac Culinan, when the call to the epis- 
copal dignity joined his royal sceptre of Cashel 
to the ecclesiastical crozier of that kingdom. 
Subsequently, her marriage to Carroll of Leinster 
brought her nothing but woe. Cormac fell in 
battle by the hand of her second husband. As he 
lay in death the vilest indignities were offered 
him by Carroll. Gormai dared to reproach her 
ruthless husband for his deed, and for her devotion 
to a noble soul was violently hurled to the ground. 
Later on, happiness momentarily seemed to 
beam on her when Niall of Aileach became her 
spouse. But its life was short, for the maw of 
battle claimed him as he fought a patriot's fight 
against the Danes at Eathfarnham. When the 
hour of burial came, the sorrow-stricken widow 
called forth a funeral lament in honour of the 
dead. And when the sod was over him and she 
had departed from the grave to face a lonely life, 
she never lost vision of her faithful husband. 
Finally this fidelity to his memory cost her life 
itself. One night as she lay asleep, her haunted 
fancy summoned the departed to her side; when 
rushing with a flood of eagerness to embrace him, 
she suffered a mortal wound from the headpost 
of the bed. Thus nobly did she close her troubled 
career, and go in manner most pathetic to link 
her spirit with that of one to whose memory she 
paid the tribute of a martyr's homage. 

[103] 



The Women of the Gael 

At last a brief lull came in the terrible struggle 
with external aggression. The raven of battle was 
hushed for some years by the army of Brian, and 
the dove of peace remained undisturbed. During 
this period we behold a feminine self-respect so 
impressive that a lone lady could traverse the 
length of Ireland without fear of molestation. It 
is true that Brian's control over the island con- 
tributed to this lady's security, but such remark- 
able immunity from attack in those days would 
have been most improbable, had woman not im- 
planted by her previous noble bearing a genuine 
respect for her sex in the soul of the nation. It 
showed a universality of respect that was rooted 
in a universality of merit on the part of women 
that overwhelms the critic who seeks in the licen- 
tious temperament of a chieftain, or the undis- 
ciplined mind of a royal maiden material 
condemnatory of the moral status of the nation 's 
womanhood. 

A rather long passage in the Wars of the Gall 
and the Gael tells this story. Here it would likely 
have been confined to students of history had not 
the genius of Moore popularised and immortalised 
it in his musical lyric, *^Eich and Rare.'' We 
think its reproduction here is pardonable. 

''Rich and rare were the gems she wore 
And a bright gold ring on her hand she bore ; 
But oh ! her beauty was far beyond 
Her sparkling gems and snow-white wand. 

[104] 



Virtuous and Noble from the Dane to Elisabeth 

*' 'Lady, dost thou not fear to stray, 

So lone and so lovely through this bleak way ? 

Are Erin's sons so good or so cold. 

As not to be tempted by woman or gold?' 

^' Sir Knight! I feel not the least alarm, 
No son of Erin will offer me harm : 
For though they love women and golden store, 
Sir Knight ! they love honour and virtue more. ! ' 

On she went and her maiden smile 
In safety lighted her round the green isle; 
And blest forever is she who relied 
On Erin's honour and Erin's pride. 

When the years of peace passed away with the 
great monarch of Kinkora, and endless dynastic 
strife ensued between the claimants of his throne, 
the women, praised by the annalists for goodness 
of heart towards the poor and the church and 
for love of the penetential, grew more numerous 
than ever. To distant Eome went the Queen of 
the Gailenga in 1051 seeking in penance a secure 
passage to the world beyond. What trials she 
must have endured to satisfy her pious cravings 
at the heart of the christian world! A less am- 
bitious journey did Bibinn, daughter of Brian 
the Great, undertake when in 1073 she carried the 
pilgrim's staff to Armagh, Patrick's city. Here 
she sojourned in self-denial till death brought her 
quiet and peace. Four years later there passed 
away Gormlai, the wife of Toird, who left behind 
her a great benefactor 's name. She * * distributed, ' ' 

[105] 



The Women of the Gael 

says the annalist, *^much wealth amongst cells 
and churches and the poor of the Lord for the 
welfare of her sonl. ' ' To the favourite monastery 
of Columbkille, Derry Mor, the daughter of King 
Murtagh O'Brien, betook herself, where in 1137 
she passed away in most edifying manner. There 
was another king's daughter some decades later, 
whose conduct was not so calculated to win our 
admiration as was that of the 'Brien lady. Yet 
it had not all the malice that many give it for, 
though Dervorgilla deserted her husband for the 
King of Leinster, she was induced to do so by the 
cruelty of her own lord and the encouragement of 
her brother. And so much did public opinion 
deem the action of the Leinster King responsible 
for her fall, and so high was its standard of 
female morality that its armed forces drove the 
delinquent monarch from his realm to a Saxon 
shelter. That her sin was due to weakness rather 
than malice seems likely, for so keenly did she 
feel the gravity of her lapse that she endeavored 
to atone for it for the rest of her life in monastic 
seclusion. And this was not the only remarkable 
manifestation of goodness with which history has 
associated her name. Her gifts to the church were 
oftentimes very considerable, and on one occasion 
they eclipsed those of all generous givers before 
her. In 1158 her donation to the clergy on the 
occasion of the consecration of Mellifont Abbey 
was sixty ounces of gold, triple the amount con- 
tributed to the premier see of Armagh by Brian 

[io6] 



Virtuous and Noble from the Dane to Elimbeth 

Boru, whose munificence towards the churcli was 
one of his prime characteristics. 

Dervorgilla reminds us of Roderick O'Connor, 
the Ard-Ri, who espoused the cause of her injured 
husband. In the High King's life there is other 
evidence of the rigid moral rectitude of con- 
temporary women. The provisions he caused to 
be made for its preservation were so stringent and 
so efficient, they demonstrate that only high 
merit on the part of those protected could deserve 
such serious attention from the nation. He con- 
vened a great meeting of prelates and lords at 
Athboy in Meath in 1167, where laws were passed 
guaranteeing, as in the days of Brian the im- 
munity of woman from attack throughout the 
length and breadth of Ireland. How well the 
nation responded to the demands of the assembly 
we know from Dr. Lynch, who says they were 
*'so salutary, that a woman might safely travel 
through all Ireland, which then enjoyed such tran- 
quillity as Northumbria is said by Bede to have 
had under the royal sway of Edwin."* 

It was during the reign of this Ard-Ri that the 
Anglo-Norman came in the guise of a religious 
reformer. If his plea had any basis of sincerity 
he should have seen that there were many in the 
land far better qualified to reform him than he 
them. Amongst these, the ladies alone could prove 
the hypocrisy of the would-be evangelists. They 
continued to furnish, after English occupation, 

* Op. Oit. p. 71-2& 

[107] 



The Women of the Gael 

conspicuous examples of virtue that could very 
favourably bear comparison with that of their 
sisters across the Irish sea. It is all in vain for 
apologists of the Saxon intrusion to seek in some 
anti-Irish comments of St. Bernard a justification 
of this invasion. If the statements of St. Bernard 
were true in relation to Ireland, we are justified 
in assuming that they were also applicable to 
England. He has said far harsher things of the 
latter country than he has uttered about Ireland. 
He has stated, for instance, that immorality was 
rampant in England, whilst he has spoken only of 
some cases of concubinage in Ireland. Besides, 
there is abundance of evidence to substantiate his 
onslaught on English morals, whilst there is little 
of real weight to support his anti-Irish utterances. 
When we hear of the Bernardine accusations, 
we must remember the noble women that Irish 
homes still continued to provide. When the first 
marauding barons crossed the seas, there lived in 
the palace of the Munster King his daughter 
Etain, who some years later was to die in pil- 
grimage at Derry. Fifty years afterwards the 
compiler of the Annals of Kilronan paid tribute 
to the goodness of Failge of the house of Conor 
Mac Dermott. Her passport to immortality was 
a comeliness of soul in consonance with that of an 
attractive appearance, whilst her generosity 
threw open the portals of her home to all who 
sought to make happy in a becoming way the 
fleeing hour. A contemporary of hers was the 

[io8] 



Virtuous and Noble from the Dane to Elizabeth 

wife of the King of Aeleach, who was famed for 
like characteristics. The Annals of Clonmacnoise 
relate the religions ardonr that, linked with a 
quickness of intellect and sunniness of disposition, 
gave Ireland in 1269 the remarkable Christina 
'Neachtain. She was, says the annalist, ^ * a right 
exceeding beautiful woman, well hymned, bounti- 
ful in bestowing, chaste of her body, and ingenious 
and witty delivery of mind, devout in her prayers, 
and finally she was inferior to none other of her 
time for any good parts requisite in a noble gentle- 
woman. ' ^ In the West she had one who vied with 
her in uprightness of character. This was 
Lasareena, the daughter of the famous King 
Cathal O'Connor of the ^Wine-Eed Hand' who 
was called ^Hhe noblest in Ireland in her time." 

With women of this type presented to the 
stranger, whilst for the first hundred years, 
through lack of intimate acquaintance with Irish 
life he still cherished dreams of the religious re- 
formation of Ireland, it is little wonder that, when 
circumstances threw him into closer contact with 
the native race, all his doubts about the moral 
greatness of the women of the Gael were dispelled. 
As the fourteenth century grew beyond the stage 
of infancy, various causes, which need not be enu- 
merated here conspired to effect the amalgamation 
of Irish and Anglo-Irish. The settlers were com- 
pelled by the force of events to fraternise with 
the natives, and the knowledge thus acquired dis- 
pelled their misapprehensions. Intermarriage of 

[109] 



The Women of the Gael 

the two races became frequent, and tliat one wMch 
regarded itself as religionsly the superior of the 
other became the rapid prey of the latter 's civil- 
isation. It was surely a marvel to witness this 
conquest of the foreigners by the life and man- 
ners of a people whom, in the highest department 
of life, they regarded as sorely in need of refor- 
mation. The marvel needs no comment, save that 
it clearly proves that such a fascination could not 
have emanated from Irish life, had it not been 
better than that of the race it vanquished. 

In the face of these facts it is interesting to 
know something of some of the leading women 
who participated, by the dignity of their lives, in 
this conquest of the heart. One of these we find 
to be Derbail O'Connor, who in the first half of 
the fourteenth century was reputed to be **the 
best woman that ever came of her own tribe." 
She had during her lifetime a worthy rival in 
goodness in Duthalach Mac Diamarda, who is 
known to us as * ^ a choice woman without dispute. ' ' 
The house of Aiffric 'Rahilly lost in 1364 a lady 
of whom it is handed down that ** there was no 
stint to her goodness up to the time of her 
decease. ' ' The land of Breffney sorrowed in 1367 
for the death of Derbail O'Rourke than whom 
*' there was not since Una, daughter of the King 
of Lochlannn, a woman of greater beneficence." 

The year in which the last-named lady went to 
her reward witnessed a weak and extreme legis- 
lative effort to stem the tide of ^degeneracy' that 

[no] 



Virtuous and Noble from the Dane to Elisabeth 

had been let loose upon the Anglo-Irish by inter- 
course with such social purity and brightness as 
has just been revealed in the persons of some of 
the leading ladies of the country. It failed to 
realise its end, for the same clear and laughing 
waters of Gaelic life flowed on unabated as before 
and continued to woo the thirsty foreigner to their 
sweetness. And reformers still continued to be 
reformed. 

In 1371 the clan Mac Carthy bewailed the loss 
of Joan, who had contributed to that victory of 
Irish honour by a life of charity and lavish hos- 
pitality. There came an honourable end to an 
honourable career when, in 1378 Mor O'Farrell, 
**an excellent woman with dispute, died a death of 
Unction and Penance and was buried honourably 
in Cluain-Conmaicne. * ' She had as contempo- 
raries the wife of O'Rourke, who was **an ex- 
cellent woman,'' and Nuala O'Farrell, whose 
entertaining habits rendered her name so fascin- 
ating for those of English blood as to compel the 
government to give her the hospitality of a prison. 
The sweet song of Eileen Aroon, which so capti- 
vated a genius like Handel, was inspired by the 
^Treasonable' nobility of Eileen Kavanaugh, a 
woman of this period. The Countess of Desmond 
of this time was no friend of England, for the 
sunshine of her palace-life was provokingly Celtic. 

Then came Eichard II, hoping by the mag- 
nificience of his majesty and the terror of his arms 
to eclipse that Celtic glamour that so hypnotised 

[III] 



The Women of the Gael 

his Saxon subjects. His very transient glory was 
of little avail, for when it departed with him the 
power of the olden spell seemed to reassert itself 
upon the colonists with redoubled vigour. The 
avalanche of Irish life increased in velocity and 
bulk, as it bore menacingly nearer and nearer the 
rapidly waning strength of the fortress of the 
stranger in Dublin; and the feminine elements in 
that avalanche assumed a speed and massiveness 
that entitled them to a substantial part in its 
growing ability for destruction. 

In 1419 the annalist takes note of Finmehain Ua 
Manchain for the purity that dwelt in her soul, 
and the honesty that was hers was well worth re- 
cording. Finmehain could visit Thomond and feel 
pride in meeting Mor, daughter of the king who 
ruled there, for plenty of womanly sense and 
virtue was her store. She was ^^best of her name 
in gerorosity, sense and piety that was in Ireland 
in her time. ' ' She could pay a visit to the land of 
Breffney also, and take delight in the company of 
Gormlai 'Rourke, whose beauty of soul and body 
was the glory of her sect. She could include in 
her itinerary the residence of Una O'Rourke, for 
there the most hospitable and religious atmos- 
phere of any home in lower Connaught would greet 
her. Above all, she could not afford to neglect the 
princely home of Margaret O'Connor of Offaly 
which, owing to the matron who directed its life, 
had earned the esteem of all Ireland as a centre 
of beneficence. In another place we hope to 

[112] 



Virtuous and Nohle from the Dane to Elizabeth 

dwell more at length on the munificence of 
Margaret, especially towards the learned. Here 
we will content ourselves with a few words on the 
spirit of fidelity towards the christian religion 
that actuated her. High churchmen were her most 
trusted councillors and most honoured guests. 
Her wealth and time were liberally devoted to 
the erection of churches and their becoming adorn- 
ment. For the orphan and the homeless she had 
nothing but the tenderest love and solicitude. 

The next generation which linked that of which 
the great Offaly lady was the finest product with 
the time of greatest debility in the history of 
Dublin Castle, emulated the religious and civic 
worth of the womanhood that has just preceded 
it. In its ranks we find in 1444 Duthalai Mac 
Cahill, who cheered many a poverty-stricken soul 
by her generosity. Twenty-two years later the 
quaint language of the annalist informs us that 
death dealt a serious blow to Erin by depriving 
it of Grace Maguire for ^^a great tale in Ireland 
was the death of this good woman.'' Two other 
ladies of the same name and time, Margaret and 
Ailbe, were well known for their exemplary 
Christianity. The latter ended by transferring 
herself and her property to the monastery of 
Lisgabail. These daughters of Fermanagh had 
a worthy neighbour in Aiffric O'Neill of Tirowen, 
' ^ a superior woman without defect. ' ' Close by in 
Tirconnell they had another rival in virtuous and 
civic activity in Finola 'Brien, the wife of Hugh 

[113] 



The Women of the Gael 

Eoe O'Donnell. *^As regarded both body and 
soul, she had gained more fame and renown 
than any of her contemporaries.'' An act for 
which she can never be forgotten was the building 
of the famous monastery of Donegal. She was as 
much responsible for the execution of this work 
as was her distinguished husband. 

Irish monks had not long been chanting their 
psalms in this sacred edifice of the Northwest ere 
a critical era in the history of their native land 
had manifested itself. The first of the Tudors 
came to the throne of England, and with his 
arrival the tide that threatened to engulf the last 
vestiges of English power in Ireland was finally 
halted. Little by little a variety of circumstances 
forced it to retreat until the government of Dublin 
was once again on a secure and aggressive 
position. The victory that had been all but com- 
pleted had gradually to be relinquished until the 
decease of Elisabeth witnessed the decisive over- 
throw of the tribal state. 

Yet, nothing daunted the womanhood of Ireland, 
who continued to maintain the same unyielding 
attitude that had characterised it heretofore in 
the face of adversity. It held tenaciously to the 
bitter end its old ideals of elevated living, though 
the much relaxed grasp of another style of living 
had reasserted itself with an ever-growing 
strength and deadliness. 

In the ranks of this never-ceasing procession 
of daughters of the Gael pledged to God and 



Virtuous and Noble from the Dane to Elizabeth 

country there comes Margaret ^Flanagan, at the 
close of the fifteenth century, who cooperated with 
her husband to ^^ build a chapel in honour of God 
and Mary in Achadh-Mor. ' ' Marching into the 
new century that was so momentous in the history 
of Ireland we discover in Grace Maguire 
of Fermanagh one whom an age of innovations 
found staunchly adhering to the tradition of piety, 
philanthropy and humanity that was so prized by 
many a spirited dame in the history of her house. 
The stripling century could lay claim to Margaret 
'Rourke, whose skill, ranging from the womanly 
science of home-keeping to the sublime ambition 
of the church-builder, was the common knowledge 
of all the race of the Gael. She was **the unique 
woman who, of what were in Ireland of her time, 
was of best fame and hospitality and house- 
keeping .... was buried in a magnificent and 
richly endowed church *^ built by herself for the 
Friars Manor close by Dromahair.'' It could 
also boast before its youth had vanished of the 
Lady of Hugh 'Neill, whose matronly ways and 
social respectability were admirably based on a 
singular fidelity to the precepts of her Maker. 
And ere yet this stage of its life had vanished it 
could furnish ^^the Dark Damsel, wife of 
O'Donnell, whose mated virtue and wit few could 
afford to dispute. ' ' 

Then came a challenge from across the waters 
to Irish loyalty not only to fatherland, but also 
to faith. Eeligious scruples that were mat- 

[115] 



The Women of the Gael 

rimonially very convenient severely afflicted 
Henry VIII and finally resulted in his severence 
from the church of Eome. Not content with re- 
formation of creed in himself, he sought to extend 
his change of conscience to Ireland as well. With 
what hostility the nation received his suggestion 
is well known. It beheld in it a more pernicious 
menace to its life and civilisation than had hitherto 
been essayed, and treated it as such. It saw in 
the new assault a deadly thrust at a faith which 
had become an integral part of its ancient mode 
of life, and had entered into its every part purify- 
ing, strengthening and glorifying it. It is in this 
new concept of the novel features of this Saxon 
campaign that the real key to the secret of Irish 
resistance must be sought, for the nation sus- 
tained its faith not merely for its christian, but 
for its Gaelic value and its civilisation not solely 
for its temporal but for its eternal preciousness. 
In the teeth of this new gale of imperial vin- 
dictiveness, the heroic hardihood evinced by the 
women who aided the nation to survive the storm 
becomes more and more interesting. While Henry 
was preoccupied with the business of transforming 
himself into a Saxon pope Judith O'Donnell, the 
wife of the cultured Manus, continued as of old 
to display in a prominent way her devotion to the 
precepts that emanated from the * old-fashioned* 
papacy of Eome and the generous traditions of 
her fathers. When with more radical projects in 
view Elisabeth intensified the policy of her father 

[ii6] 



Virtuous and Noble from the Dane to Elisabeth 

she found one who little heeded her schemes for 
the religions and social * betterment' of the Irish 
people. This was Grace O'Malley, the mariner 
Queen of the West. Sturdy of soul and unyielding 
as the billows that harassed her native shores, 
she was like them pure at heart. The Lady of 
Windsor might ravage monasteries, confiscate 
ecclesiastical property and destroy the shrines of 
the saints, but Grace would prove her religious 
conservatism by a contructive policy in the spheres 
where Elisabeth's was destructive. A monastery 
on Clare Island still bears testimony to the fact 
that Grace loved to bestow her wealth on the 
temples and shrines that Elisabeth despised. And 
that the race which produced so many church- 
builders might continue to preserve its wonderful 
vigour and vitality, she gave all the weight of her 
encouragement to the practice of early marriages 
and the rearing of healthy children who would be 
a bulwark against the enemies of faith and father- 
land. 

In later years, while the Elisabethan fury 
raged at its worst there was one in Breffny, 
Gormlai O'Eourke, who maintained the ideals of 
munificence towards the church which character- 
ised Grace. Her festive board, too, served to keep 
some of the old love of the ancient life and some 
of the warmth of hope in the hearts of her clans- 
men. A little later lived Mor O'Brien, who was 
**a woman praiseworthy in the ways of woman," 
when the ravagers of Ireland did so much to strip 

[117] 



The Women of the Gael 

Irish femininity of its self-respect. Aye, even 
towards the close of the Elisabethan era of 
*f rightfulness/ Joan Maguire, the pride of 
Fermanagh, was herself a living proof that the 
conquest effected by the sword and famine left 
the Gaelic soul of Irish womanhood unvanquished. 
When famine stalked throughout the land claim- 
ing thousands of victims and leaving some places 
tenanted only by wolves, and when many a 
daughter of the Gael was left fatherless and 
brotherless, she did what she could for the widow, 
the orphan and the penury-stricken and outlawed 
clergy. In the words of the analist she ^^was the 
pillar of support and maintenance of the indigent 
and the mighty, of the poets and exiled, of widows 
and orphans, of the clergy and men of science, of 
the poor and the needy.'' 

Before parting with the noble women whose 
lives contributed such staying power to the nation 
in its attachment to Gaelic traditions in this most 
critical of centuries in Irish history, we intend 
to give some further general evidence to substan- 
tiate what has been revealed in the careers of the 
women who have been recorded. 

We will begin with the testimony of Captain 
Cuellar, a Spaniard, who has provided us with 
some impressions he received from a journey 
through Ireland. There is reason for believing 
that this gentleman was in no way prejudiced in 
favour of the Irish, for in his account he did not 
hesitate to record some incidents that were not 

[ii8] 



Virtuous and Noble from the Dane to Elisabeth 

creditable to Ireland. Happily, there is every 
reason for believing that these were isolated and 
abnormal, and in no way indicated anything like 
a universality of prevalence. Neither did he 
leave behind him any statement condemnatory in 
a general way of the people amongst whom he 
fared. But a statement has survived in favour of 
Irish women. He pays a tribute to their fine in- 
stinct for the management of the home, saying 
that, as a body, they were ** great workers and 
housekeepers after their fashion."* In this pithy 
assertion there is much more than might appear 
at first sight. Where a hard-working womanhood 
obtains there is little opportunity for anything 
save moral strength and civic integrity. When the 
home is the central sphere of that labour, it in- 
contestably proves the existence of an upright 
and useful womanhood. 

Confirming and developing Cuellar's statement 
comes the testimony of Dr. Lynch. He informs 
us of his belief in the splendid loyalty of Irish 
women to their marriage vows and a modesty of 
bearing which characterised their domestic ac- 
tivity. With regard to matrimonial life he states : 
^^ nothing can induce me to believe that promis- 
cuous lusts were indulged and that the marriage 

tie was disregarded by the Irish when I 

reflect that this same people, when yet pagans, 
paid such respect to their women, that they would 
not allow them to intermarry with the Picts, with- 



* Adventures, ed. Allingham. p. 62. 



The Women of the Gael 

out the express stipulation that the maternal line 
should be preferred to the paternal in the royal 
succession.''** This connubial purity and loyalty 
seemed to be indicated in the sense of decorum 
and studied simplicity manifested in their external 
appearance. *^They did not polish their cheeks 
with rouge nor borrow fair complexions from 
ceruse. If they were handsome they studied more 
to be inviolably faithful to their husbands than to 
heighten their beauty by ornament; if they were 
not handsome they did not aggravate the defect 
by deformity of soul.''*** 

But perhaps the most indestructible argument 
he provides us for their moral integrity was their 
affection for their children. Where the maternal 
instinct is pure and strong a loose conception of 
marriage obligations is a very rare abnormality. 
That this was preeminently realised in Irish 
mothers has been asserted by Lynch. ^* There is 
no quarter of the world," he says, ** where the 
infant is attended with more affectionate solicitude 
than in Ireland at the present day." And the 
energy, valour and strength of the manhood of 
that time was in itself no feeble revelation of the 
veracity of the author of Cambrensis Eversus. 

In the light of all this favourable evidence it is 
interesting to consider for a moment the accusa- 
tion of excessive love of drink that many English 
writers of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries 



* Op. Cit. p. 353-4. 

* Dr. Lynch, Op. Oit. p. 223. 



[I20] 



Virtuous and Noble from the Dane to Elizabeth 

level at Irish womanhood. In the first place, if the 
Saxon assertions were perfectly true, it is certain 
that that standard of morality which from other 
sources we know to have been the property of 
Irish women could not possibly have existed. 
Secondly, slanderous language about Irish char- 
acter was no unusual thing in those days, and by 
no means helps the veracity of these English 
writers who speak of Irish feminine affection for 
strong liquor. Thirdly, their accusations are in no 
way substantiated by any of the native records. 
Perhaps their *high conception' of Irish civilisa- 
tion unduly affected their teeming imaginations 
and led them to assume the existence of more pro- 
nounced bibulous tendencies in Ireland than in 
England, where they could contemplate those pot- 
houses half-full of tippling women whom their 
own literature portrayed. 

With this we must bring this chapter to a close. 
We do so feeling confident that the matter con- 
tained therein demonstrates that the strength of 
purity and the sunshine of geniality which made 
their home in the soul of Irish womanhood from 
the Danish to the Elisabethan troubles played no 
inconsiderable part in the work of keeping the 
spirit of Ireland elevated, self-reliant and unsub- 
dued when the grandeur of its civilisation had been 
humbled to the dust. 



[121] 




CHAPTEE VIII 

Devotion to Lettees feom the Sixth to the 
Eighteenth Century 

HERE are many who contend that a life 
devoted to high intellectual emprises ex- 
tracts all that is most womanly and best 
from woman. Whatever amount of truth may be 
contained in this theory there is no doubt that the 
radical exclusion of woman from the sphere of 
literature can mean for a nation the loss of a 
substantial influence that might be highly con- 
ducive to its moral and mental betterment. 
Whether woman be the intellectual inferior of 
man or not she is from the numerical standpoint 
as important a fraction of the nation as man, and 
the amount of mental power residing in her as a 
part of the national entity must always be very 
considerable. Besides, her donation to the printed 
page is calculated to embody in a more marked 
degree certain educational qualities which are of 
rather rare occurence in the products of the mas- 
culine literateur. 

With this in mind we cannot help feeling regret 
that so many centuries of the world's history 
passed away with woman as a negligible quantity 
in literature. In Ireland, however, we do not dis- 

[122] 



Devotion to Letters, 600-1800 A, D. 

cover such a notable absence of woman from 
things literary. Though in this country, as in 
every other, women writers were very rare until 
the centuries that history calls modern, interest 
in letters and learned men attained a degree of 
intensity and continuity that can scarcely be 
paralleled elsewhere. 

This Irish feminine delight in letters manifested 
itself in the desire of mediaeval women to acquire 
several languages. It could be seen in the fact 
that even in the earliest stages of the history of 
christian Ireland, women of the world as well as 
those who had assumed the garb of religion had 
the ambition to transmit their thoughts in both 
prosaic and poetic form to the guardianship of the 
manuscript. Above all, it was apparent in the 
history of that long line of noble ladies whose 
patronage and encouragement sheltered and stim- 
ulated within the precincts of their homes the 
^literati' of their land. 

Earlier in this book we had occasion to speak 
of woman's literary activity within the cloister 
during the golden age of Irish Christianity. ^ We 
can go back to the same period and find her sister 
in secular life essaying similar work. In the sixth 
century the mother of King Branduff had a writ- 
ing style which was evidently utilised on wax 
tablets. We are not compelled to deduce from 
meagre fact the common ability of her sisters of 
the Gael to manipulate the pen. It is distinctly 
stated in the old record that ladies were ordinarily 

[123] 



The Women of the Gael 

able to accomplish such a feat. Before we leave 
the era of the saints, we find the daughter of the 
King of Culann betaking herself to the great 
school of Clonard to learn to read the psalms in 
Latin. Thus she displayed a desire not only to 
have a direct knowledge of the scriptures, but to 
acquire a working grasp of one of the learned 
languages of antiquity. It shows also that young 
ladies had the same privilege as boys seeking cul- 
ture at the learned institutions of the time. Very 
likely it was due to such training that the lady 
nurse of Cuicamne was able to utter in bardic 
fashion over him whose impromptu verses which 
paid tribute to the learning which was his whilst 
he lived. 

Later on, while the Danish storm was raging, 
some poems exhaling a delicate intermingling of 
joy and sorrow are supposed to have come from 
the pen of Gormlai. In her, Ireland can probably 
claim to have given birth to the earliest historical 
woman writer, and one too who, as the world's 
feminine literary pioneer, was the author of a 
considerable amount of verse, for according to the 
Annals of Clonmacnoise she ^* composed many 
pitifiul and learned ditties.'' Her ** Lament for 
Niall" was her best production, being character- 
ised by originality and sincerity and a passion 
that knows a striking restraint in its greatest 
fervour. Its poignancy was aggravated by the 
fact that it arose from hearing the joyful sounds 
of a wedding which, kindling within her a remin- 

[124] 



Devotion to Letters, 1600-1800 A,D. 

iscent mood, sent her back in fancy to happy days, 
the glory of which when contrasted with her pres- 
ent state of bereavement led to a splendid sorrow. 
With this knowledge of woman's association 
with literature in the early centuries of the chris- 
tian era we can, with high expectation of finding 
that relationship continued, transfer our attention 
to the middle ages. And we are not to suffer dis- 
appointment, for we find women so vigorous in 
the prosecution of their literary avocations that 
the English government regarded them as worthy 
of its persecuting attention. A Presentment of the 
Grand Jury at Cork in the fourteenth century 
mentioned in an unfavourable light as ** poets, 
chroniclers and rhymers'' the names of Mary 
O'Donoughue and Mary Clancy. Another who 
might merit similar notice of the enemy of Irish 
learning was Fionnuala Mac Finghinn, who was 
known about the middle of this century as ^Hhe 
woman who was best that was in Ireland in her 
own sphere as the wife of a learned man. " There 
yet remains one lady, Aine Mac Keon, who de- 
serves recognition as one of the distinguished 
women of this century. She can not have escaped 
the fascination of letters, for she was married to 
Matthew O'Eogain, who, according to the Annals 
of Ulster was ^^fourteen years continuously in 
Oxford delivering lectures." If then as the wife 
of this cultured man she was the ' ' chief entertainer 
and tribe-head of her ilk," it is no farfetched con- 

[125] 



The Women of the Gael 

elusion that her services were usually at the 
disposal of those who experienced the hypnotism 
of their ancient lore. 

Following the highway of learning into the next 
century we continue to find amid the bardic com- 
panies that trod thereon ladies who joined in the 
procession to encourage or participate in its work. 
Fiounnuala 'Kelly, well-known for her piety, 
thought she was doing work of a supernatural 
quality when her patronage went out to the 
* literati'. She was ^*a woman that was a gen- 
eral protection to the learned companies of Ire- 
land." The next generation produced a lady, 
Maragaret O'Connor of Offaly, in whose per- 
sonality the spirit of mediaeval literary patronage 
reached its apogee. The munificent attitude she 
displayed in this matter is sufficient to enthrone 
her as one of the most illustrious personages in 
all the history of the principality of Offaly. The 
receptions she provided for the learned ones had 
a vastness and splendour that was truly regal. 
Her invitation was not circumscribed even by the 
four seas of her native land, for her noble hand 
proferred hospitality to the children of the Gael 
in exile, as well as at home. The numbers that 
responded to her call were immense, but no one 
left her princely residence unsatisfied. 

We can not part with this noble woman without 
giving that enthusiastic description of one of her 
great receptions, which Mac Firbis has handed 

[126] 



Devotion to Letters, 600-1800 A.D. 

down to us. We are told that twice in the year 
1434 whilst a dreadful famine searched the vitals 
of the land did generous Margaret open her home 
to the learned of Ireland and those who dwelt in 
Scotland. With Mac Firbis as narrator, let us 
listen for a moment to his tale of the splendid 
pageantry of intellectualism that distinguished 
one of these occasions. **A11 persons, Irish and 
Scottish, or rather Albans'' were welcomed by 
Margaret, *^as it is recorded in a Roll to that 
effect, and the account was made thus, that the 
chief kins of each family of the learned Irish 
was by Gilla-na-Naemh Mac Egan's hand, the chief 
judge to O'Connor, written in the Roll, and his 
adherents and kinsmen, so that the aforesaid 
number of 2700 was listed in the Roll with the 

arts of dan or poetry, music and antiquity 

And Margaret on the garrets of the great church 
of Da Sinchell clad in cloth of gold, her dearest 
friends about her, her clergy and judges too, 
Calvage himself on horseback by the church's out- 
ward side, to the end that all things might be done 

orderly and each one served successively 

As it was we never saw nor heard neither the like 
of that day nor comparable to its glory and solace. 

And so we have been informed that the 

second day in Rathangan (on the feast of the 
Assumption in harvest) was nothing inferior to 
the first day. And she was the only woman that 
had made most of preparing all manner of 

[127] 



The Women of the Gael 

things possible to serve God and her soul, and not 
that only, but while the world stands her very 
many gifts to the Irish and Scottish nations shall 
never be numbered. God^s blessing, the blessing 
of all saints and every other blessing from 
Jerusalem to Inis Gluair be on her going 
to Heaven, and blessed be he that will hear and 
read this for blessing her soul.''* Well, indeed, 
did the lady responsible for such a scene merit 
the eulogy of Thomas D'Arcy Magee when he 
says : 

'*She made the bardic spirit strong to face the evil days. 
To the princes of a feudal age she taught the might of 

love, 
And her name, though woman's shall be scrolled their 

warrior names above." 

A few others in this century who befriended the 
* literati' we should like to place in this book in 
the company of Margaret of Offaly. There died 
in 1447 Sarah 'Mulchonry, who so tenderly loved 
the bards that she was called a ** nurse to all the 
learned." In the following generation lived 
Slaine, the wife of Mac William Burke of 
Clanrickard, whose bounty towards ^sons of learn- 
ing' was almost as ambitious as Margaret's. She 
**was general protector of the (bardic) bands of 
Ireland and Scotland and a woman who was of 
best charity and humanity that was in her time. ' ' 
And before the century had vanished into the past 
it could lay claim to Margaret 'Eahilly, a scholar 

* Mrs. Green. Op. Cit. Quot. pp. 346-7. 

[128] 



Devotion to Letters, 600-1800 A.D, 

of considerable ability, for she was * learned in 
Latin and in English and in Irish. ' ' 

Coming to the age of the Tudors, which wit- 
nessed so much intellectual brilliancy in England, 
and yet so much Saxon antagonism towards the 
development of any such cultural magnificence in 
Ireland, we find the women of the Gael still help- 
ing, as far as in them lay, those who had con- 
secrated themselves to the high emprises of the 
poet, chronicler and raconteur. In the first part 
of this age the lady of Hugh 'Neill was as noted 
for her affection for *folk of learning' as for her 
ardent piety. Whilst this lady entertained in the 
North, the wife of Rory Mac Dermott in the West 
performed a kindred labour of love towards the 
devotees of literature. In her home at Lough 
Key she cooperated enthusiastically with her hus- 
band to make cheerful the lot of those men of 
letters who were the target of the persecuting 
Saxon. The tradition of generosity she upheld 
was sustained in the ensuing generation within 
the province where Lough Key was situated, by 
Sheela Mac William Burke. No man of letters, 
whatever his tribe might be, came unwelcomed to 
her homestead, for it was ^^the resort of bards 
from the Lifitey side, of the Dalcassions' choice 
poets, of the schoolmen from near Barnasmore, of 
the tale-reciters and of minstrels out of every airt 
in Ireland.''* A contemporary of hers was the 

* O' Grady. Cat. of MSS in British Museum. 404. 

[129] 



The Women of the Gael 

wife of Brian Mac Manns, whose all-embracing 
hospitality was as powerfully focussed upon the 
literary man as the pilgrim and the penury- 
stricken wanderer. As the annalist states it, she 
was *Hruly hospitable to the poor of God and to 
the (bardic) bands and retinues, and to pilgrims 
and to permanent beggars, to erudite and to 
ollaves, to every one of those that were wont to 
be seeking largess throughout Ireland/^* In 1583 
died Margaret O'Donnell, who won the praise of 
the poet, Teigue Ball, for the protection she be- 
stowed on men of learning. And even as late as 
the year 1600, when the polity that had encouraged 
and endowed the learned orders had gone down 
in defeat, there was a Jean Maguire of 
Fermanagh, who was ''the pillar of support and 
maintenance .... of the poets and of men of 
science.^' 

Noble, indeed, was the part which the women 
of Ireland played in the preservation of the 
learned tradition of the land. No national ad- 
versities divorced them from fidelity to that 
cause, and though despite their efforts the ''bardic 
bands" followed almost in their entirety the fun- 
eral train of the civilisation of the brehons to its 
seventeenth century grave, they helped to preserve 
through centuries of bardic effort the abiding 
impress of the old tradition upon the national 
soul, an impress that no slayers of bard or brehon 

* Annals of Ulster, ed. Hennessy. Dub. 1580. 

[130] 



Devotion to Letters, 600-1800 A.D. 

could eradicate. That spirit had to languish for 
many years to come behind prison bars, but it 
knew no fear of death, and only awaited the day 
when the slightest liberalism of the oppressor 
should enable it to reassert itself with resurrected 
glory in a literature the progress of which shall 
never be interrupted until full freedom greets it 
in the land of its production. 



ri3i] 




CHAPTER IX 

Heroines From Elizabeth to the Present Day 

HEN at the dawn of the seventeenth 
century we parted with the last of those 
heroic women whose activities were asso- 
ciated with the last agony of the Gaelic system of 
government, we saw in the glory of their vanishing 
forms the assurance that a something essential 
to nationhood yet abided, and could not, like the 
organism of a governmental system, be reduced 
by gun and sword to inanimate helplessness. We 
are now about to consider how the women who 
came after them received the deathless ideals that 
had been transmitted to them by the ladies who 
held them aloft over the ruin accomplished by 
the Tudors, and fought for that soul-heritage 
until our present time. 

The reigns of James I and Charles I passed 
away leaving little of particular interest in fem- 
inine activity to be recorded. During this period 
the patriotic energy of women had, for the most 
part, to be confined to the inner recesses of their 
hearts. For its outward display there was but 
meagre opportunity left, for the aggressive 
forces of their land were temporarily shattered. 
With the rest of the nation, they found them- 

[132] 



Heroines From Elisabeth to the Present Day 

selves utterly helpless in the hands of the spolia- 
tors, who came to complete by wholesale 
confiscation of the landed patrimony of the tribes 
the work of infamy that Elizabeth had per- 
petrated. With a wave of ejection from the 
stronghold of their fathers sweeping over the 
country, the only sphere left them for heroism 
was within the domain of the mind, which they 
might still hold intact, despite the hell of ruth- 
lessness that was raging round them. They could 
still preserve the determination never to be evicted 
from the world of Gaelic ideals, though deprived 
of their ancestral halls and lands. That this was 
the case their heroic activity in an approaching 
age was to manifest. 

The era that was to show their fidelity arrived 
when the parliament of England threw down the 
gage of battle to Charles I. The worthless king 
permitted the nation he had persecuted to arm 
itself on his behalf when, taking advantage of the 
civil war in England, it might with far more utility 
for itself, have endeavoured to get rid of both 
cavalier and roundhead. However, it was nation- 
ally sincere in the policy it adopted, for, when 
Charles was losing in England it hoped to appro- 
priate him as the ruler of an independent anti- 
Cromwellian Ireland. Besides, he was of Celtic 
stock, and was not regarded as an intruder into 
the family life of the Gael, provided he severed 
all connections with the sovereignty of the Saxon. 

[133] 



The Women of the Gael 

A crucial test of Irish loyalty to its own ideals 
whilst advocating the cause of the Stuart, was the 
treatment meted out to the nation when the Iron- 
sides of the Protector of England won the day 
against royalty. That is a fact well known to 
readers of history. Here we intend to show how 
conspicuously the womanhood of Ireland shared 
the punishment for staunchness to its Celtic past. 

We will open the bitter, yet glorious, tale with 
a recital of some instances of the blood-lust of 
the Puritans and the indiscriminate venting of its 
fury upon women as well as men. When heroic 
Drogheda capitulated after a wonderful resis- 
tance, the number of women who share with the 
men the tender ^ mercy' of the Puritan sword eas- 
ily exceeded the thousand mark. In the vault of one 
church, where a large number of women had taken 
refuge, not a single lady escaped a cruel death. 
When Coote plundered and destroyed the town 
of Clontarf he, as admitted by Lord Clarendon, 
massacred the women and ** three suckling 
infants." In the same week the ladies of the 
village of Bullock, fearful of sharing the fate of 
their sisters of Clontarf, betook themselves in 
boats to sea. Thither Colonel Clifford pursued 
them where, being *^ overtaken, they were all 
thrown overboard. ' * Who does not know of how 
the heartless soldiery butchered three hundred 
women as they knelt round the cross in the market 
place of Wexford town 1 Worse than any we have 

[134] 



Heroines From Elizabeth to the Present Day 

recounted, perhaps, was the massacre of Island 
Magee, where the naked steel and the jagged 
precipice were the weapons used by the Cromwel- 
lian ruffians to dispatch helpless women. After 
multitudes of them had been done to death in 
their beds, the remnant was driven at the bayonet 
point over the Gobbins cliffs, where the lacerating 
rocks and the icy waves completed the work of 
the murdering steel. The vision of surging woe 
and infamy that the tale of that night's crime 
produced in the fancy of Ethna Carbery has re- 
sulted in as fierce a song of vengeance as Ireland 's 
poetic anthology contains. We make no apology 
for giving it in its entirety. 



''I am Brian Boy Magee — 
My father was Eoghan Ban — 
I was awakened from happy dreams 
By the shouts of my startled clan ; 
And I saw through the leaping glare 
That marked where our homestead stood, 
My mother swing by her hair — 
And my brothers lie in their blood. 

In the creepy cold of the night 
The pitiless wolves came down — 
Scotch troops from the Castle grim 
Guarding Knockf ergus town ; 
And they hacked and lashed and hewed, 
With musket and rope and sword, 
Till my murdered kin lay thick, 
In pools, by the Slaughter Ford. 

[135] 



The Women of the Gael 

I fought by my father 's side, 

And when we were fighting sore 

"We saw a line of their steel 

With our shrieking women before ; 

The red-coats drove them on 

To the verge of the Gobbins gray, 

Hurried them, God, the sight ! 

As the sea foamed up for its prey. 

Oh ! tall were the Gobbin cliffs. 
And sharp were the rocks, my woe ! 
And tender the limbs that met 

Such terrible death below ; 
Mother and babe and maid 
They clutched at the empty air, 
"With eyeballs widened in fright, 

That hour of despair. 

(Sleep soft in your heaving bed, 

little fair love of my heart ! 
The bitter oath I have sworn 
Shall be of my life a part; 
And for every piteous prayer 
You prayed on your way to die. 
May I hear an enemy plead, 
While I laugh and deny.) 

In the dawn that was gold and red, 
Ay, red as the blood-choked stream, 

1 crept to the perilous brink — 
Great Christ ! was the night a dream 
In all the island of gloom 

I only had life that day — 

Death covered the green hill-sides, 

And tossed in the Bay. 

[136] 



Heroines From Elizabeth to the Present Day 

I have vowed by the pride of my sires — 
By my mother's wandering ghost — 
By my kinsfolk's shattered bones 
Hurled on the cruel coast — 
By the sweet, dead face of my love, 
And the wound in her gentle breast 
To follow that murderous band, 
A sleuth hound who knows no rest. 

I shall go to Phelim O'Neill 
With my sorrowful tale and crave 
A blue-bright blade of Spain, 
In the ranks of his soldiers brave. 
And God grant me strength to wield 
That shining avenger well — 
When the Gael shall sweep his foe 
Through the yawning gates of Hell. 

I am Brian Boy Magee ! 
And my creed is a creed of hate; 
Love, Peace, I have cast aside — 
But Vengeance, Vengeance, I wait ! 
Till I pay back the fourfold debt 
For the horrors I witnessed there. 
When my brothers moaned in their blood. 
And my mother swung by her hair. ' ' 

These bewildering orgies of blood were surely 
not inspired by the mere royalist creed of their 
victims. Cromwell did not wade to power 
through any such, welter of blood in England. He 
did so in Ireland because the daughters of the 
Gael were not merely advocates of the Stuart 
cause, but true champions of the national gospel. 

[137] 



The Women of the Gael 

But methods even worse than these were re- 
sorted to, that a noble womanhood might taste of 
the most diabolic suffering that a perverted human 
ingenuity could devise for it. They were torn in 
thousands from the bosom of their native land 
and sent into exile to become the prey of the 
swinish desires of their Saxon masters. English- 
men, with their astute commercial instinct, saw 
a new field for enterprise in the ranks of Irish 
womanhood, and discussed the question of its 
manipulation with their government in terms of 
pounds, shillings and pence. A systematic 
^ rounding-up ' of Irish ladies resembling the slave 
hunts of the African wilds became a favorite 
pastime of efficient traders, that their sugar plan- 
tations in the West Indies might have a bountiful 
supply of physical and moral slaves. Those alone 
could consider themselves immune from the 
hunters ' toils whose loyalty to England had been 
proved to be unimpeachable. Should those who 
were caught in the venatorial net decide, after 
capture, on the Anglicising of their minds, they 
had a fair chance of escaping the most degrading 
outrages, for such a perversion was a most 
savoury dish for the Saxon imperial appetite. 
This is clearly demonstrated in the correspondence 
of some of those responsible for the success of the 
slave mart. They did not object to helping to 
preserve Irish feminine goodness, provided it 
merited such liberal treatment by a previous dis- 
play of affection for England. Stimulated by this 

[138] 



Heroines From Elizabeth to the Present Bay 

pious motive, it has been estimated that Cromwell 
sent twenty thousand Irish, of whom a large per- 
centage were women, into the Virginian colonies 
and the West Indies. 

Another proof, if proof were needed, of the 
sterling Gaelic spirit and heroism of the women 
of those days, may be seen in the marriage laws 
enacted by the Cromwellian legislators. Men 
marrying transplantable, in other words, truly 
Irish ladies, ipso facto exposed themselves to the 
peril of a similar fate. Soldiers of the Common- 
wealth were forbidden to marry Irish ladies unless 
they became Protestant, which at least in those 
days meant English, lest the Puritan brand of 
Christianity and patriotism might fade away 
before the conquering influence of Gaelic fidelity 
to God and country. 

So much for the evidence of the Irishwoman's 
hardihood of soul in the treatment which she 
received from those who looked with keen dis- 
relish on the type of fortitude she prized. We 
can not part with Cromwellian days without 
citing one shining example of woman's heroism. 
This was Rose O'Doherty, the wife of the great 
Owen Eoe O'Neill. It was her entreaties that 
were largely responsible for the transference of 
his Spanish blade from the Continent to Ireland. 
It was thus considerably due to her patriotic heart 
that Ireland wooed back from the military 
glamour of Europe one of the ablest soldiers that 
her history can claim. Were it not for most 

[139] 



The Women of the Gael 

unlocked for circumstances, the man whom Rose 
persuaded to come to Ireland would in all prob- 
ability have accomplished the emancipation of his 
people. She is assuredly deserving of a dignified 
position in the pantheon of Irish memory. For 
this reason we like to believe that patriotic grati- 
tude enshrined her name in the music of Ireland, 
where the knowledge of its honour should make 
doubly dear the haunting melody of Eoisin Dubh. 
With Eose we leave the blood and iron rule of 
the dour Puritan behind us, and after watching 
the sway of Charles II pass away, we find England 
again thrown into the confusion of a civil war. 
"William of Orange was invited to dethrone the 
Catholic James, and soon, with the aid of 
Protestant England, he compelled the last of the 
Stuart kings to fly to Ireland for safety. The 
Gael again, with much more sentimentality and 
generosity than the instinct of national self- 
preservation should have permitted, took to his 
bosom the good-for-nothing royal fugitive because 
of his racial stock and faith. In the struggle that 
ensued between Ireland and the Orange leader, 
the resurrected chance of smiting the Saxon ap- 
pealed to Irish women. Many instances of their 
heroism might be recounted, but the valour they 
displayed at one great moment of that struggle 
throws sufficient light on the tenacious and long- 
suffering patriotism of Irish femininity. That deed 
of heroic calibre the walls of Limerick witnessed. 
Every other fortified city had succumbed to the 

[140] 



Heroines From Elizabetlfi to the Present Bay 

Williamite attacks, when the Irish troops deter- 
mined to make their last great fight at the city 
on the Shannon. The struggle here was one of the 
most bitter of the whole war. But no ferocity- 
could quell the fortitude of its inhabitants, women 
as well as men. And when the ranks of the de- 
fending manhood grew thinner as the siege pro- 
gressed, and the stout walls were reeling to ruin 
before the Williamite assaults, the heroic women 
of that city rallied many a time their hard-pressed 
men and side by side with them, smote with any 
weapon at hand the onrushing troops of the 
Orange leader. If, finally Limerick yielded to 
the attacker, no one can say it was for lack of 
battling spirit in its feminine population. 

Though the heroines of this southern city gazed 
on the battered and stormed defense works that 
had been their pride, and the star of their leader, 
Sarsfield, had set behind Irish skies, the work 
they had done gave a new fascination to that 
appeal of the Poor Old Woman to her future 
daughters to abide in truth and fidelity. How 
clamorous and persistent that appeal was to be 
in the immediate future, and how generously 
responsive to its voice womanhood was to prove 
itself, the eighteenth century can tell. 

The fall of Limerick rang the death knell of the 
Stuart cause in Ireland, but its sanguine and ima- 
ginative adherents continued to dream and smg 
for many a day of the return of a Jacobite kmg, 
for whom a resurrected land might once more fly 

[HI] 



The Women of the Gael 

to arms. In these reveries and songs there was 
entombed an imagery that could have risen only 
from the soul of a nation where women's heroic 
instinct still lived on unimpaired, and its arrest- 
ing nature had seized the popular worshipping 
tendency with all its pristine vigour. When the 
people spoke in verse of their national destiny, 
they saw in the pitiful plight of their land all the 
appealing characteristics of a lady of ideal beauty 
in distress, and the urgent duty of the chivalry 
of the nation's manhood coming to her rescue. 
The bards say visions of Erin robed in the delicate 
and alluring mysticism of a symbolic Granuaile, 
Kathleen ni Houlihan or Dark Rosaleen, and made 
the thoughts that arose therefrom a controlling 
feature of eighteenth century poetry. 

This wave of idealism bearing woman on its 
crest swept onwards through this century until, in 
its latest years, the trend of political developments 
gave many a noble lady an opportunity of verify- 
ing by stern activity the recitude of the people 
that had made her sex a glorified symbol of the 
national being. The organization of the society of 
United Irishmen paved the way for the heroic role 
that the daughters of Ireland played during the 
eventful years of the last nineties. 

In speaking of the women of that period, we can 
begin with no nobler individual than Sarah 
Curran, whose devotion to Eobert Emmet and 
the cause for which he stood, has immortalised 
her name, and made her one of the leading types 

[142] 



Heroines From Elisabeth to the Present Day 

of Irish feminine fidelity to the call of a nation 
and its manhood. A romance of exquisite beauty 
might be constructed from the story of Miss 
Currants relations with Eobert Emmet, but, how- 
ever tempting the subject may be, we are com- 
pelled for lack of space to deal with it briefly in 
this book. The intensity and steadfastness of her 
life-long devotion to the man who loved his 
country before all things, has scarcely been sur- 
passed in history. It has been worthily com- 
memorated in Moore ^s immortal musical eulogy, 
' ' She is Far from the Land. * ' This most plaintive 
of melodies with its armoury of soul-searching 
weapons tells how the allegiance to her patriot 
lover never waned, and no distraction could dull 
the sense of loss experienced, when the law of the 
Saxon deprived her of him. In foreign climes, 
like a Siren voice, the music of his memory sang 
her to death, the death of a woman who died of 
the passion of a patriot for a patriot lover. Listen 
to Moore as he tells the sweet, sad story : 

She is far from the land where her young hero sleeps, 
And lovers around her are sighing; 
But coldly she turns from their gaze and weeps, 
For her heart in his grave is lying. 

He had lived for his love, for his country he died, 
They were all that to life had entwined him ; 
Nor soon shall the tears of his country be dried, 
Nor long will his love stay behind him." 

[143] 



The Women of the Gael 

That which has been stated in prose and verse of 
the unflinching loyalty of Miss Curran to Emmet 
is unwarrantable, many people contend. They 
believe they find justification for the maintenance 
of this attitude towards Miss Curran in the fact 
that she got married after Emmet's death. It is 
our opinion that, if the circumstances surrounding 
that marriage are honestly considered, they com- 
pletely exonerate Sarah Curran from the charge 
of infidelity to the memory of the Irish patriot. 
Her family and friends persistently urged her, if 
for no other reason, for the sake of her health, to 
wed someone who would take a husband's care 
of her. It was only after many entreaties that 
she yielded to their wishes, and when she did so, 
she seemed to manifest a lack of interest in her 
action that could only be accounted for by the 
all-absorbing devotion of her soul to the one she 
had lost. Besides, the marriage did not accom- 
plish what her friends desired, for, despite every 
attention on the part of her husband, she died 
soon afterwards in a foreign clime. 

Linked in honour with the fate of Emmet, was 
the life of his servant, Anne Devlin, socially 
humble, but kin in a spirit of the grandees of the 
soul. She inherited the daring, ingenuity and 
energy of her uncle, Michal Dwyer, the famous 
Wicklow outlaw, who for so long a time defied and 
outwitted the hunters of the English crown. She 
actively participated in the preparations for the 
'98 insurrection, helping to forge the engines of 

[144] 



Heroines From Elisabeth to the Present Day 

war. And, when at last her master was caught 
in the meshes of the law, no torture could enduce 
her to surrender any secret which could facilitate 
the conviction of her beloved chief. What suffer- 
ings she vanquished to establish her loyalty to 
Dark Eosaleen are told us in that most striking 
tribute which Dr. Madden has paid to her memory. 
*^The extraordinary sufferings endured, and the 
courage and fidelity displayed by this young 
woman, have few parallels, even in the history of 
those times which tried people's souls, and called 
forth the best, occasionally, as well as the basest 
of human feelings. She was tortured, frightfully 
maltreated, her person goaded and pricked with 
bayonets, hung up by the neck, and was only 
spared to be exposed to temptations, to be sub- 
jected to new and worse horrors, than any she 
had undergone, to suffer solitary confinement, to 
be daily tormented with threats of further priva- 
tions, till her health broke down and her mind was 
shattered, and after years of suffering in the same 
prison .... she was turned adrift on the world 
without a house to return to, or friends or rela- 
tions to help or succour her.''* Did nothing sur- 
vive but this solitary passage of Dr. Madden it 
should suffice to make the name of Anne Devlin 
one to be treasured by a people fashioned in a 
mould of chivalry. 

Before dismissing the name of Emmet, we can 
not afford to forget the wife of Thomas Addis 

* United Irishmen, p. 335. 

[145] 



The Women of the Gael 

Emmett, the brother of Eobert. Gently nurtured 
and unaccustomed to the commonplace trials of 
life, she was fated to encounter circumstances of 
such a forbidding character as might be calculated 
to overcome even one trained in the school of 
adversity. But they could not cow the spirit of 
Jane Emmett. She beheld her happy home in 
Stephen's Green invaded by a brutal soldiery, 
and the menacing steel pointed at the innocent 
children in their cots, whilst no domestic privacy 
was respected and her husband was removed to 
Newgate prison. Thither she pursued him and, 
eluding the vigilence of the guards she, who had 
*^ never waked but to a joyful morning*' endured 
with him the austerites of a cell but twelve feet 
square. Discovered, she was ordered to leave, but 
her ^^mind was made up,'' and her womanly 
steadfastness forced the prison authorities 
to submit to her presence. 

Later on, Thomas Addis was removed to Fort 
George in Scotland and here, too, the heroism of 
his wife brought him her company to cheer his 
cell. There she continued to administer to her 
patriot husband all the consolation of a faithful 
wife, until they tasted freedom on American soil. 
In the land of the free she enjoyed the honours 
that her sufferings merited. Having survived her 
husband nineteen years she, in the words of Dr. 
Madden, * terminated in a foreign land a long 
career, chequered by many trials, over which a 
virtuous woman's self-sacrificing devotion, the 

[146] 



Heroines From Elizabeth to the Present Day 

courage and constancy of a faithful wife, the force 
of a mother 's love eventually prevailed. ' ^ 

Thinking of the Emmets inevitably directs 
one 's attention to Theobald Wolfe Tone, and that 
one most intimately associated with him, his wife. 
The part Mrs. Tone had in the making of the 
patriotic career of her husband in its initial stages 
forcibly reminds one of Eose O'Doherty and her 
responsibility for the services rendered by Owen 
Roe to Ireland. As Rose persuaded the great 
leader of the seventeenth century to draw his 
sword for his native land, so Mrs. Tone trans- 
ferred the attention of her husband from farming 
in the United States to sowing the seeds of insur- 
rection in Ireland. He had purchased an estate 
for himself at Princeton, New Jersey, that there 
he might have that liberty which Ireland could 
not provide, and the bliss of unperturbed family 
life. But, Mrs. Tone preferred the high and 
arduous way along which the patriot must fare, 
and with a sacrificial spirit denied herself the 
haven of peaceful home life for the comradeship 
of one ever threatened by the law that seeks to 
stifle in martyr blood the deathless voice of a 
nation. Through her, indeed, America lost a dis- 
tinguished citizen, but Ireland obtained one 
worthy of her most select niche in the temple of 
her great ones, and an inspiration for her 
principle-loving sons for all time. 

Once Tone had embarked on the enterprise that 
was to lead him through terrible seas to the haven 

[147] 



The Women of the Gael 

of death, she never for a moment forsook him. 
How intimately she entered into his life during 
that period of grievous anxiety and how greatly 
he prized her sympathy and aid, we learn from 
the words of Tone himself. His great confidence 
in her ability, as well as her will to sustain him 
and his cause, should be most convincing, since it 
emanates from a mind such as his. Inferior 
women may sometimes be the mates of great men, 
but when distinguished husbands, after the inti- 
mate study of their wives that married life affords 
them attribute to their partners considerable 
credit for their own success, the objects of their 
praise invariably deserve it. 

Such, we believe, to have been verified in the 
case of Mrs. Tone, for her masterly husband never 
ceases to eulogise her. There is nothing more 
beautiful in the world of domestic literature than 
the compliments which Tone paid his wife in the 
epistolary exchanges between them. Obsessed with 
the feeling of her grandeur of character he pro- 
claims her *Hhe light of my eyes and the pulse of 
my heart.'* He told her that she was as indis- 
pensable to his life and its strength as the nurtur- 
ing rays of the sun are to the oak of the forest, 
before the day of storm. In his Autobiography he 
said that in his work he always relied on her assis- 
tance and received it. ** Women in general, '* he 
said, ^*I am sorry to say are mercenary, and, 
especially, if they have children, they are ready 
to make all sacrifices to their establishment. But 

[148] 



Heroines From Elisabeth to the Present Day 

my dearest love had bolder and juster views. On 
every occasion of my life I consulted her ; we had 
no secrets one from the other, and I unvaryingly 
found her think and act with energy and courage 
.... If ever I succeed in life and arrive at any- 
thing like station and eminence, I shall consider 
it due to her counsels and example.''* 

Confirming Tone 's appreciation of her are those 
of Lucien Bonaparte and Dr. Madden. The 
brother of Napoleon when addressing the French 
Directory on her behalf compared her to ^* those 
women of Sparta, who on the return of their 
countrymen from battle, when, with anxious looks, 
they ran over the ranks, and missed among them 
their sons, their husbands and their brothers, 
exclaimed: '*He died for his country; he died for 
the republic!" We cannot refrain from giving 
the bouquet of praise with which Dr. Madden has 
adorned her memory. * * She was a faithful, noble- 
minded, true-hearted and generous woman," he 
states, * 'utterly divested of selfishness, ready to 
make any sacrifices, and endure any suffering for 
her husband, her children and her country. 
Always cheerful, trustful and hopeful in her hus- 
band's destiny, and strongly impressed with the 
goodness of his heart, and the brilliancy of his 
talents, and his devotedness to his cause, she was 
the solace of his life, the never-failing comfort of 
it, the courageous partner and partaker of his 
trials in adversity, and the support of his weari- 

* Autobiography, p. 66. 

[149] 



The Women of the Gael 

ness of mind in all his struggles, labours and 
embarassments. ' '** 

In the noble company to which Mrs. Tone 
belonged we must also include Lady Lucy 
Fitzgerald, the sister of Lord Edward. Akin to 
her brother in many aspects of temperament, she 
was like him, too, in the f ervoUr of her devotion 
to the Dear Dark Head. She loved the cause he 
advocated, and she loved him especially because 
of his loyalty to that cause. Two quotations from 
her letters are sufficient to convey to the reader 
the spirit that was her's. They are shot through 
and through with pride of race, admiration of the 
patriotic passion of her brother, a courage that 
quailed before no foe of her land, and an immov- 
able confidence in the ability of her nation to 
march with dignity to freedom, ** Irishmen,'' she 
exclaims, .... '4t is Edward Fitzgerald's sister 
who addresses you: It is a woman, but that 
woman is his sister : she would therefore die for 
you as he did. I don't mean to remind you of 
what he did for you .... He was a Paddy and no 
more; he desired no other title than this. He 
never deserted you — will you desert yourselves *? 
.... Will you forget the title which it is still in 
your power to ennoble? .... Will you make it 
the scoff of your triumphant enemies, while 'tis 
in your power to raise it beyond all other glory 
to immortality? Yes, this is the moment, the 
precious moment which must either stamp with 

* Op. Cit. vol. III. p. 2.52. 

[150] 



Heroines From Elkaheth to the Present Day 

infamy the name of Irishmen and denote you 
forever wretched .... or raise the Paddies to 
the consequence which they deserve, and which 
England shall no longer with-hold, to happiness, 
freedom, glory.'' Again she tells in trumpet 
tones of the perfect mingling of the waters of 
Edward's love and her's, as they rushed ever 
onward to their ocean receptacle, Ireland. In 
her *^he met a soul, twin to his own" because each 
breathed and loved alike their object, Ireland; 
Ireland, where each had first drawn breath — 
Ireland, greater in her misfortunes, in her wrongs 
than the most favoured country of the earth .... 
Ireland, whom neither falsehood could entice nor 
interest bribe to apostacy, suffering through suc- 
cessive ages from the oppression of a nation 
inferior to Herself in all but in one of the adven- 
titious circumstances of fortune." 

Just as heroic as Lady Lucy was Mary Anne, 
the sister of Henry Joy McCracken. In fact, if 
we wanted to be skeptical of any evidence of 
courage short of positive acts, we should be 
inclined to make her far superior in fortitude to 
the sister of the Geraldine. When the cause which 
was dear to the heart of Henry met with failure 
in Antrim, she was with him to keep him strong 
in an atmosphere of defeat, and when the last 
grim circumstances attending his exit from mortal 
life became a reality, she failed not to be with him 
until the very end. We will let herself tell in 
her unostentatious way how her magnificent 

[151] 



The Women of the Gael 

sisterly love poured honey into the vinegar and 

gall of poor Henry's final progress towards his 

calvary. **Abont five p. m., he was ordered to the 

place of execution, the old market-house, the 

ground of which had been given to the town by 

his great, great grandfather. I took his arm, and 

we walked together to the place of execution, where 

I was told it was the general's orders that I should 

leave him, which I peremptorily refused. Harry 

begged I would go. Clasping my hands around 

him (I did not weep till then) I said I could bear 

anything but leaving him. Three times he kissed 

me, and entreated I would go ; and looking around 

to recognise some friend to put me in charge of, 

he beckoned to a Mr. Boyd, and said, *He will take 

charge of you.' Mr. Boyd stepped forward; and 

fearing my further refusal would disturb the last 

moments of my dearest brother, I suffered myself 

to be led away." These simple words of Mary 

Anne, and the act to which they testified, establish 

her beyond all doubt a queen in the realm of 

heroism. It is no wonder that Madden should say 

of her that her name *^has become associated in 

the North with that of her beloved brother. The 

recollection of every act of his seems to have been 

stored up in her mind, as if she felt the charge 

of his reputation had been committed to her 

especial care. In that attachment there are traits 

to be noticed indicative not only of singleness of 

hearts and benevolence of disposition, but of a 

noble spirit of heroism, strikingly displayed in the 

[152] 



Heroines From Elizabeth to the Present Bay 

performance of perilous duties, of services ren- 
dered at the hazard of life, at great pecuniary- 
sacrifice, not only to that dear brother, but at a 
later period to his faithful friend, the unfortunate 
Thomas Russell. '* 

The nobility of soul that was Miss McCracken's 
was typical of that of many another sister, wife 
and mother of these trying times. With these, 
we are compelled to deal more briefly, because a 
certain needless repetition would be involved in 
the lengthy recital of their activities, for the roads 
of heroic endeavor they traversed were very like 
in nature to that trodden by the sister of Mc- 
Cracken. There was Julia Sheares, the sister of 
John and Henry, whose unremitting solicitude for 
her brother 's welfare was lauded in the last letter 
of one of them to her. There was the sister of 
Myles Byrnes, who, when the savagery of the 
soldiery drove the people of Wexford to the 
mountains, was the most prominent of a large 
number of women who braved the perils of the 
hills to keep their kin informed of the movements 
of the troops. Of the wife of Samuel Neils on, 
Mrs. Concannon has said that no woman of '98 
**has suffered so much,'' yet, when she came to 
the end of her sorrowful life she deserved this 
epitaph on her tomb : * ^ a woman who was an orna- 
ment to her sex ; who fulfilled in the most exemp- 
lary manner, the duties of a daughter, wife and 
mother." What Irishman cannot feel proud of 
the patriotic fervour of the mother of the 

[153] 



The Women of the Gael 

Teelings ? She prided in her noble ancestry, and 
the gallant actions of some of them that were so 
creditable to their rank. She knew all the elegance 
and happiness of a cultured home, and yet she 
did not hesitate to offer on the altar of patriotism 
the two sons, who were the very light of her life. 
Who that loves liberty, and feels the thrill of that 
enchantment that comes from the shackled beauty 
of a national spirit that would feign, with un- 
fettered pinions, wing its way in an atmosphere of 
its own creation, can think without admiration of 
Mrs. Michael O'Dwyer, who left ignoble security 
for the perils of that defiant freedom on the moun- 
tains of Wicklow, with her noted outlaw husband? 
Here she stood by him when the bloodhounds of 
England were hot on his trail, and when at last 
he was taken and sent into exile she bore with him 
the sorrows of his prison ship, and gave him, 
during the few years of life that remained to him 
on foreign soil, the solace of a brave woman's 
care. Two other women, not as well known as 
those whom we have already placed to the credit 
of the eighteenth century, but girt round with as 
deathless a valour as any of them, were Eose 
Hope and Betsey Gray. Rose, who was the wife 
of James Hope, was a valuable aid to her husband 
whenever his patriotic work demanded the ser- 
vices of a courageous and resourceful supporter. 
Before the rebellion in the North, she did good 
work by helping to get arms and ammunition to 
the United Irishmen, whilst apparently plying the 

[IS4] 



Heroines From Elizabeth to the Present Bay 

innocent business of a marketer. She did the same 
in the old city on the Liffey, though her efforts 
were attended by some hairbreath escapes. Many 
of her other adventures, telling of the dauntless 
soul that lived in this daughter of Erin, might 
be recounted. To the North, too, belonged Betsey 
Gray, for she came from the vicinity of Bangor. 
She, not content with being a purveyor of am- 
munition, sought the more satisfactory work of 
helping to use it on the Saxon. When the men of 
Down came out to do battle in '98, she found a 
place in their ranks. But poor Betsey, with her 
brother and sweetheart, were overpowered by a 
party of yeomen before they could do much for 
their country. She received, however, the death 
she longed for, and her spirit must feel joyful if 
it knows that her honourable end has kept her 
memory green in the popular fancy of the neigh- 
borhood. The local folk love to picture her clad 
in green, and, mounted on her charger as, with 
glistening blade, she smote the foe of her land. 
With Betsy we say farewell to the heroines of the 
eighteenth century, and the threads of golden 
story they have woven into the fabric of their 
country's history. 

In the wake of the death blow that was given to 
the dream of '98 came the destruction of Irish leg- 
islative independence. Thus English statesmen 
intended to consign to a grave that harboured no 
ray of hope that sanguine idealism in which Irish 
strivings of centuries for national emancipation 

[155] 



The Women of the Gael 

had been rooted. They were destined, as usual, 
to be disillusioned. Ireland, ever fruitful of 
leadership, did not grow sterile now. She soon 
produced O'Connell, who plumbed the depths of 
national self-consciousness, and reawakened the 
dormant appetite for freedom. That energy 
which the Emancipator stirred and loosed was 
destined to know but little rest, until it brought 
those ideals of liberty from which it sprang so 
close to realisation as they are to-day. 

Pursuing that role which women played in this 
resurgent activity for liberty, we find nothing that 
can justify production in this book, until about 
the middle of the nineteenth century. By this, 
we do not mean to imply that they slumbered dur- 
ing the years between the Union and this period 
without feeling the throb of the reinvigorated 
national impulse. This they certainly did, for the 
great women of the second generation of this 
century would have been an impossibility, had not 
their mothers, who linked them with the days of 
'98 been admirers of the heroism furnished by the 
ladies of that time. However, until the spirit of 
Young Ireland manifested itself, the patriotic 
activity of women was almost completely unosten- 
tatious, and the great work it accomplished was 
within the quiet purlieus of the home. 

With Catholic Emancipation a reality, and 
Kepeal of the Union almost an accomplished fact, 
the nation, sniffing so much of the air of liberty 
became restless, until it could enjoy it without 

[156] 



Heroines From Elisabeth to the Present Day 

check or limit. The Young Ireland Movement, 
having for its object no mere legislative freedom 
but the absolute right of the Irish people to regu- 
late every department of their life as they thought 
best, gripped the country. Into this movement, 
the women of the country leaped with an eager- 
ness and courage which would do justice to the 
patriotic instinct of the daughters of Ireland, in 
the most thrilling days of the past. 

Amongst these Young Ireland women of action 
there were two who deserve space for individual 
attention, *Eva' and 'Speranza' of the * Nation.' 
What *Eva* preached in the newspapers of Young 
Ireland, fearlessness and patriotic passion, she 
clearly manifested in her own actions. Who that 
has heard of it can forget that memorable scene 
when, in a moment of supreme trial, she surren- 
dered him who was dearest to her, that Dark 
Eosaleen, whose claims on his affection she 
regarded as immeasureably more sacred than 
hers, might suffer no injury. As her sweetheart, 
Kevin 'Doherty, stood on the dock charged with 
the high crime of fealty to his mystic lover, * Eva * 
was close beside him to confirm his loyalty to that 
passion. She told him before a crowded court- 
house, to proclaim his patriotism like a man, and 
take whatever penalty such a noble confession 
entailed. Kevin did so, and for ten long years in 
prison the silver sound of her heroic words, **be 
thou faithful, 1 11 wait, ' ' kept chiming a message 
of hope in his heart, until the day of his liberation. 

[157] 



The Women of the Gael 

He was not disappointed by 'Eva' for she had 
waited, and gave him the reward of her wedded 
affection for the love that had wedded his soul to 
Ireland. 

In the sisterhood pledged to patriotic endeavor, 
'Eva' had a worthy comrade in 'Speranza.' 
Crowned with beauty, youth and intellectuality, 
she was a brilliant luminary in the social firma- 
ment of Dublin, but no empty glamour of the 
drawing-room could divorce her from the great 
service to which she was pledged. 

From her pen a message of courage and truth 
challenging every knavish foe of her land ever 
leaped forth. With truth as with a sword of light 
she bade her countrymen 

''Go war against evil and sin, 

'Gainst the falsehood and meanness and seeming 

That stifle the true life within. 

Your bonds are the bonds of the soul, 

Strike them off and you spring to the goal. ' ' 

What her pen espoused she never feared to 
support in her own person. The most remarkable 
occasion on which she showed that she could 
practice what she preached was at the trial of 
Gavan Duffy. We will let A. M. Sullivan describe 
her action in his enthusiastic and dramatic wsij. 
''When the struggle was over, and Gavan Duffy 
was on trial for high treason among the articles 
read against him was one from the suppressed 
number of the Nation, entitled ' ' Jacta Alea Est. ' ' 

[158] 



Heroines From Elizabeth to the Present Day 

It was without example as a revolutionary appeal. 
Exquisitely beautiful as a piece of writing it 
glowed with fiery incentive. It was in fact a prose 
poem, a wild war song, in which Ireland was 
called upon that day in the face of earth and 
Heaven to invoke the ultima ratio of oppressed 
nations. The Attorney-General read the article 
amidst breathless silence. At its close there was 
a murmur of emotion in the densely-crowded 
court, when suddenly a cry from the ladies^ gal- 
lery startled everyone. ^^I am the culprit if crime 
it be,'* was spoken in a woman's voice. It was 
the voice of queenly ^Speranza.' '' The woman 
that uttered those words was certainly one who 
would not be a failure even if she had to grapple 
with more stern fact. 

The armed efforts of the Young Irelanders 
proved abortive but the national atmosphere 
remained charged with the lightnings of rebellion 
until it assumed a most menacing aspect a few 
years later. The Fenians believed in the use of 
the same weapons as Young Ireland. They were 
ready like their mythical ancestors of old to court 
almost certain death in battle against the armed 
might of England. Amongst them there were to 
be found members of the gentle sex who were as 
brave as the bravest of their manhood. Typically 
such was Ellen O'Leary, the sister of the lion- 
hearted John, who took almost as intimate and 
fearless a part in the Fenian conspiracy as her 
dauntless brother. In this work she was as clever 

[159] 



The Women of the Gael 

as she was energetic. One of the deeds that prove 
her ingenuity was the efficient part she took in the 
rescue of Stephens from prison. She is indeed 
worthy of being forever associated in the memory 
of her countrymen with the name of her patriot 
brother. 

The Fenians ^ plans for an uprising were nipped 
in the bud by the arrest of many of the leaders 
and as a result the armed effort that was made to 
attack the forces of the Crown was absolutely 
futile. Their complete failure brought the coun- 
try back to parliamentary methods of seeking 
redress for its grievances until it chanced upon 
the able leadership of Charles Stuart Pamell. 
When in the nineties "i\iQ Chief as the people 
liked to call him had levelled the heaviest artillery 
of statesmanship he could devise at the fortress 
of Saxon domination some of the best purveyors 
of ammunition that he had were to be found 
amongst the women of his day. Chief of these 
were his sisters Fanny and Anne. 

Anyone who has read what Fanny ParnelPs 
pen produced cannot fail to see what intense 
sympathy there was in her heart for the agonis- 
ing heart of Ireland. Pondering on that calvary 
of her nation, she contributed most substantially 
to that avalanche of patriotic emotion that was 
bearing down upon those who had violated the 
rights of a sovereign people. John Boyle ^Reilly 
speaking of the manner in which she championed 
through her Land League Songs the rights of an 

[i6o] 



Heroines From Elizabeth to the Present Day 

ancient race says that the sweeping messages of 
her songful utterances were ^ ^ crushed out like the 
sweet life of a bruised flower. '^ They were ^^the 
very cry of a race. ' ^ In this relentless crusade of 
pen and ink she invaded even America where 
through the medium of the Boston Pilot she won 
the sympathy of many a heart for her long- 
suffering land. The ringing command of her 
^^Hold the Harvest^' entered a Saxon court of 
justice where a judge had it read at a state trial 
to show what a menace it voiced for English 
power. One glorious verse of it we give. 

''Oh! by the God who made us all — 

The seignior and the serf — 

Rise up ! and swear this day to hold 

Your own green Irish turf; 

Rise up ! and plant your feet as men 

Where now you crawl as slaves, 

And make your harvest fields your camps, 

Or make of them your grave." 

It is little wonder that Davitt called it ''the 
Marseillaise ' ' of the Irish peasant, the trumpet 
call of the League to the Celtic people to remem- 
ber the hideous crimes of an odious system, and 
with trust in God's eternal justice to rise and give 
battle to the death against the imported curse of 
their country and their homes. ' ' * 

As an organiser she displayed as much capacity 
for patriotic work as in the printed page. It was 
she who initiated the movement for the creation 



* The Fall of Feudalism, p. 292. 

[i6i] 



The Women of the Gael 

of a Ladies* Land League. Despite the frowns 
of many skeptics and nltra-conservatives who 
should be friendly she made a success of this 
enterprise. She made of this society an engine 
of war that forced Buckshot Forster, one of the 
worst enemies of the oppressed tenant-farmers, 
to retreat to his native England. 

With Fanny went hand in hand her fighting 
sister Anne. The latter owned a warrior fire that 
could not be extinguished and a strength of will 
that might have adorned the personality of the 
most masculine of men. She fought '^with all 
her brother *s intense application to any one thing 
at a time, and with more than even his resolute- 
ness of purpose in many enterprises that might 
enlist her interest and advocacy, together with a 
thorough revolutionary spirit. * * To have out- 
Parnelled Parnell in this the ruling feature of his 
character was an achievement of which the great- 
est of women might be pardonably proud. 

Unfortunate circumstances deprived Ireland of 
Parnell ere he could win a striking victory for 
her. Political strife became the thing of the hour 
till John Redmond was permitted without opposi- 
tion to take the dead ^ ' Chief 's ' * place. Under the 
new leadership many good concessions were made 
to the national demands. In the meantime, how- 
ever, a new idea was gradually taking hold of the 
country. That idea was Sinn Fein, a system of 
political philosophy which maintained that the 

* Davitt. Op. Cit. p. 300. 

[162] 



Heroines From Elisabeth to the Present Bay 

time was ripe for Irishmen to discard the Parlia- 
ment of Westminster and win national freedom 
by a self-reliant development of Ireland itself. 
Young Ireland with startling rapidity became 
enamoured of the new policy and in the Battle 
of Dublin in 1916 proved its willingness to die for 
an Irish Eepublic which the principle of *^ Ireland 
for the Irish '* demanded. 

This brings us to the latest phase of Irish 
feminine heroism. The most commonplace knowl- 
edge of the fight of Easter Week must convince 
even the most inimical that Irish women are yet 
true to the spirit of their sisters of the dead cen- 
turies. Everything that a man could do must be 
placed to the credit of heroic daughters of Ireland 
during that greatest week that Dublin ever knew. 
Their services to their brothers in arms embraced 
every department of war work from the man- 
ipulation of a rifle to the merciful labours of Red 
Cross nurses. No better picture of their activity 
has yet been presented than that given by an 
English Red Cross nurse whose testimony has 
every right to be regarded as impartial. *^0n 
Easter Sunday^' she says, ^* which was the day 
first appointed for the Volunteers^ manoeuvres, 
and for which all the men were mobilised the 
women in the movement were also mobilised and 
ordered to bring rations for a certain period. It 
was only at the last moment and for sufficiently 
dramatic reasons that the mobilisation of the men 
and women was cancelled. These Irish women 

[163] 



The Women of the Gael 

who did their work with a cool and reckless cour- 
age unsurpassed by any man, were in the firing 
line from the first to the last day of the rebellion. 
There were women of all ranks from titled ladies 
to shop assistants, and they worked on terms of 
easy equality, caring nothing, apparently, but for 
the success of the movement. Many of the women 
were snipers, and both in the Post Office and in the 
Imperial Hotel, the present writer, who was a 
Red Cross nurse, saw women on guard with rifles 
relieving worn out volunteers. Cumann na mbam 
girls did practically all the despatch carrying; 

some of them were killed They did Red 

Cross work — I saw them going out under the 
deadliest fire to bring in wounded volunteers. They 
cooked, catered and brought in supplies; they 
took food to men under fire at barricades; they 
visited every volunteer's home to tell his people 
of his progress. I never imagined that such an 
organisation of determined fighting women could 
exist in the British Isles. These women could 
throw hand grenades, they understood the use of 
bombs; in fact they seemed to understand as much 
of the business of warfare as their men. ' ' * 

Such heroism would be a worthy theme for a 
special volume. Here, however, we cannot afford 
to be individualistic in our treatment of these 
ladies, with the exception of a few. Those we 
propose to favour thus are the Countess 
Markievicz and the mother of the two Pearses. 



* The New York Sun. May 22iid. 

[164] 



Heroines From Elizabeth to the Present Day 

The Countess being the only woman in charge 
of a fighting unit and her name having won inter- 
national recognition we think that she is entitled 
to individual treatment here. To gain a proper 
idea of the debt of honour that her country owes 
her we must call to mind what barriers she had 
to burst through in earlier days before she won 
her way to an understanding of the rights of 
Irish nationhood. She was born within a circle 
which the clear light of Dark Rosaleen's counten- 
ance could never penetrate. But the honesty of 
her heart was too powerful for these instruments 
of darkness and it emancipated her from their 
control to such an extent as to make her one of 
the most ardent supporters of Irish Republican 
liberty. 

When the blood-test of this revived republican- 
ism was in operation in 1916 she was in the midst 
of the ordeal with her brave Fianna or Irish Boy 
Scouts. These she had founded years before and 
had fashioned them into a splendidly organised 
body of young martial spirits who treasured a 
career of arms as the boy Cuchulainn loved it of 
old. Leading these throughout the fray she 
evinced a marked sense of leadership coupled with 
a courage that nothing could daunt. We can not 
refrain here from giving the magnificent tribute 
bestowed on her by Sidney Gilford when her fight 
had been fought and lost. The consequent forti- 
tude and nobility to which he bears testimony 
exceeded those of the hour of battle for now the 

[i65l 



The Women of the Gael 

wild storm of strife had ceased, her fight-fervour 
had abated and she was face to face with the calm 
reality of death. We will let Gifford tell how she 
faced this new situation. ^^She was sentenced to 
death by court-martial but the sentence was 
altered to imprsionment for life. It is reported 
that she made a vigorous protest when the change 
of sentence was announced. She had fought side 
by side with the fifteen men who were shot. She 
would have shared in their glory if they had been 
successful. She longed to share their fate, to die 
rather than suffer the living death of imprison- 
ment for life. To Countess Markievicz, proud- 
spirited, fiery, accustomed all her days to un- 
trammelled freedom, the very embodiment of both 
mental and physical energy, imprisonment for 
life is a far more bitter fate than death itself. ' ' * 
It is little wonder that such heroism drew George 
Eussell from his cooperative farming schemes 
and the mysteries of the spheres to sing the glories 
of the Countess and the women of the land she 
represented. 

''Here's to the women of our blood 
Stood by them in the fiery hour, 
Rapt lest some weakness in their mood 
Rob manhood of a single power — 
You, brave as such a hope forlorn, 
Who smiled through crack of shot and shell, 
Though the world look on you with scorn, 
Here 's to you, Constance, in your cell. ' ' 



The glories of Ireland, ed. Maurice Joyce. Quotation, pp. 359-60. 

[i66] 



Heroines From Elizabeth to the Present Day 

With the Countess we wish to associate in hon- 
ourable mention the mother of the two Pearses, 
Patrick and William. She took no positive part 
in the rebellion but she gave to it all that her 
heart held dearest, her two magnificent sons. She 
gave to God and Ireland two of the most beautiful 
characters that her land had ever known and she 
gave them with the unwavering faith that she 
was only doing her duty. That such was her sub- 
lime creed we know from the words she uttered 
at her last sad interview with her son, Willie, 
after Padraic had gone the martyr's way. Her 
motherly heart, because it was so motherly and 
good, was weighted with a most bitter natural 
sorrow, yet turning to her son she said: ^^ Thank 
God they are taking you. When I heard they had 
taken Pat I hoped you, too, would go because I 
would rather that the two go than leave one be- 
hind to bear the sorrow. I am more content to 
bear the sorrow to the end of my life when I 
know that as you were always together in child- 
hood, in boyhood and manhood, you are united 
together in death. ' ' Then turning to the English 
officer present she said: ^^You have taken my 
darling son Padraic and now you are about to take 
my second and only remaining son Willie. Gladly 
do I offer them to die for Jesus and for Ireland. ' ' 
Well, indeed, did she prove herself to be that ideal 
patriot mother on whose lips Padraic put the 
sacred and sacrificial words: 

[167] 



The Women of the Gael 

**I do not grudge them: Lord, I do not grudge 

My two strong sons that I have seen go out 

To break their strength and die, they and a few, 

In bloody protest for a glorious thing. 

They shall be spoken of among their people. 

The generations shall remember them. 

And call them blessed ; 

But I will speak their names to my own heart 

In the long nights ; 

The little names that were familiar once 

Round my dead hearth. 

Lord, thou art hard on mothers : 

We suffer in their coming and their going ; 

And though I grudge them not, I Weary, weary 

Of the long sorrow — And yet I have my joy : 

My sons were faithful and they fought." 

With the mother of the Pearses we say fare- 
well to the women of action whose deeds have 
adorned the story of Ireland. We see in her, one 
of the latest heroic products of the land, a 
guarantee of the indestructibility of Irish nation- 
hood. Whilst a nation possesses such mothers 
as she it is endowed with a nationalising alchemy 
that can never cease to make soldiers of men 
who shall not hesitate to seek honour on the 
death-haunted battle-field whilst the Gael has life 
and consciousness. 



[i68] 



CHAPTER X 

Womanly Moeality and Honour from the 
Sixteenth Century Onwards 

WE HAVE seen what a record of noble 
living in the domestic sense of the words 
had been the property of Irish women 
until the destruction of that polity at the close 
of the sixteenth century, which had protected 
piety and had encouraged so many of those vir- 
tues which are the prime ornament of family life. 
We have likewise observed the steadfastness 
with which since the collapse of that common- 
wealth Gaelic feminity had aided in preserving 
the national soul of Ireland. We think it will be 
interesting to consider, in this chapter, how 
faithfully the women of Ireland adhered to the 
tradition of exalted living handed down to them 
until the sixteenth century, for in the quietude 
that hovers round the hearth they were more 
fundamentally potent in shaping the destiny of 
the nation than in the council chamber, or in the 
theatre of heroic deeds. 

As the family is, so to a large extent the nation 
must be, in patriotism and general self-respect. 
That the Irish home must have been a nursery 
of morality and civic virtue in the seventeenth 

[169] 



The Women of the Gael 

century, we know from the fact of the large fam- 
ilies it reared, and the piety that was the orna- 
ment of its women. To these two features of Irish 
life several writers of that age bear testimony, 
but here we content ourselves with giving that 
of two foreigners who were eyewitnesses of what 
they relate. These were Massari and Malasana, 
the companions of the Nuncio, Einnucini, who 
assert that the women of Ireland, despite the dis- 
turbed state of the country, bestowed their tender 
care on large families, and did themselves ^^with 
comeliness combine matchless modesty and 
piety, by which their native attractions were 
enhanced. ' '* 

Not only in prose but in poetry we hear lauda- 
tory words bestowed on the women of this 
century. The sorrowful and suffering remnant 
of the bardic class made the moral loftiness and 
beautiful home life of many a lady the theme of 
songful outpourings. To give but one noted 
example, the well-known harpist, O'Carolan, paid 
tribute in several immortal airs to the nobility 
of the women of his day. And well he might, for 
the truest friend he had was Madame Mac 
Dermot, who so loved the tuneful songs of the 
blind minstrel, that she gave him every help at 
her command, and wept bitter tears when the 
silence of the grave enfolded him. 

In addition to this evidence of womanly worth 
there is some also of an indirect nature which, 

* The Irish People. E. Hogan. SJ. quot. p. 55. 

[170] 



Womanly Morality and Honour 

in no mean measure, testifies to the feminine 
self-respect of this period. We have already had 
occasion to dwell at length on the cruelty exer- 
cised towards Irish ladies in Cromwellian days, 
and pointed out how it was in revenge for their 
patriotic activities. Here we wish to cite one 
noted instance of Cromwellian barbarism, which 
seems to have been dictated by the hellish desire 
to expose to the basest insults not merely pride 
of race, but the most delicate feminine modesty. 
A low scoundrel named Hurd, who was governor 
of Galway in 1655, took fiendish delight in mak- 
ing a laughing-stock of the women of that city by 
ordering them to discard their Irish cloaks, know- 
ing well they had little else save ludicrous apparel 
to shelter them from the public eye. Yet, the 
efforts they put forth to shield their womanly 
sense of propriety, even at the cost of social 
dignity, must redound forever to the fair name of 
Galway. On the day subsequent to Hurd's orders 
there could be seen on the streets **most of the 
women appearing in men's coats — high-bom 
ladies who had been plundered of all their prop- 
erty by the rapacious soldiers, sinking their shame 
before the gaze of the public, with their ragged or 
patched clothes, and sometimes with embroidered 
table-covers, or a stripe of tapestry torn from the 
walls, or some lappets cut from the bed-curtains, 
thrown over their head and shoulders. Other 
women covered their shoulders only with blankets 

[171] 



The Women of the Gael 

or sheets, or table clothes, or any other sort of 
wrapper they could lay their hands on. You 
would have taken your oath that all Galway was 
a masquerade, the unrivalled home of scenic 
buffons, so irresistibly ludicrous were the varied 
dresses of the poor women."* Kurd's poisoned 
arrows reached the target of their Irish pride, 
but failed to do anything to their modesty save 
glorify it. 

Notwithstanding the butcheries and acts of 
shame directed by the Cromwellians against Irish 
womanhood, the men of the Gael, whose souls were 
harrowed by the sight of these atrocities, could 
not get themselves to revenge their outraged 
wives and daughters by disrespectful treatment 
of the ladies of the Saxon. The fact that in this 
respect they maintained a noble reputation speaks 
volumes of praise for their innate reverence for 
womankind, and shows that this attitude must 
have been largely the resultant of a truly moral 
and honourable native femininity. The testimony 
we deduce in favour of this noble bearing of Irish- 
men we get from the lips of a Privy Counsellor of 
Ireland. His statement is that ** though unarmed 
men, women and children, were killed in thousands 
by command of the Lords Justices, the Irish sent 
multitudes of our people, both before and since 
these cruelties were done, as well officers and 
soldiers as women and children, carefully con- 

* Cam. Ever. ed. Kelly. Dub. 1848. vol. II. p. 207. 

[172] 



Womanly Morality and Honour 

veyed, to the sea-ports and other places of 
safety.''* 

Of the purity of woman's life during the next 
century we are told by men who were strongly 
antagonistic to Irish patriotic endeavor. Such 
an eminent authority as Lecky has paid splendid 
compliments to the moral integrity of eighteenth 
century Irish women, and the purifying and 
elevating effect it had upon the nation. His 
testimony is all the more valuable seeing that his 
highly reputable veracity as a historian forced 
him to admit, despite his anti-Catholic bias, the 
existence of something admirable within a church 
organisation which he despised. In like manner, 
Arthur Young, an Englishman, in his Tour of 
Ireland in 1776, gave a very favourable report of 
womanly morality. Amongst the gentry, indeed, 
he observed considerable moral laxity, but the 
general body of the people furnished a woman- 
hood that was exemplary in its fidelity to its 
noblest instincts. 

But even in his criticism of the gentry, we find 
that Young was far too severe. We have already 
glanced into the attractive home life and shining 
civic virtues of the women who adorned the last 
troubled years of this century, and we must not 
forget that for the most part they belonged to 
upper class society, and to the Protestant faith 
to boot. Some of them, too, were the products of 
the city, and surely, if their womanly grandeur 

* Cromwellian Settlement. Prendergast. Dub. 1875. p. 71. 

[173] 



The Women of the Gael 

survived the temptations of their surroundings, it 
is not far-fetched to assume that they had, in the 
pure atmosphere of the countryside, many a lady 
of high standing in society, with a moral character 
akin to theirs. 

Passing on to the nineteenth century, we find 
ourselves flooded with a mass of material testify- 
ing to the goodness of Irish womanhood. Volumes 
based on that material might be written, but here 
we can not afford, in a general survey of Irish 
women, to sin against the rules of proportion by 
giving relatively more space to the ladies of this 
period than to those of other days. In this par- 
ticular instance this is especially true, because so 
much evidence has been produced in print from 
statistics and otherwise to show the morality of 
Irish women of recent times, and the world is so 
universally convinced of the fact, that there is 
scarcely any need of reasserting its truth. 

However, we cannot pass it over in perfect 
silence. Beginning with citations from author- 
ities, we find Count d'Aveze, early in the century, 
noting in the west the very soul of honour and 
queenliness of spirit reflected in the countenances 
of Irish women. ^ * While contemplating, ' ' he says, 
*^ these poor women, for the moment, I confess 
that their titles of nobility seemed to radiate from 
their brows, and I gave way to the idea that they 
were really descended from the blood of kings.'' 
Dr. Brown pays a high tribute to the Irishwoman's 

[174] 



Womanly Morality and Honour 

religion and love of children, and the large fam- 
ilies they have reared and continue to rear as an 
incontrovertible proof of both these character- 
istics. Dr. Brownson, an American, attributed in 
1873 the strength of Irish manhood to a large 
extent *Ho the pure and virtuous lives of the 
women of the race for which they have been 
distinguished in all ages. ^ ' Elie Eeclus, a French- 
man, asserts that ^^ there are few countries of 
Europe whose women possess so much dignity 
and self-respecf as those of Ireland. George 
Petrie, speaking in 1821, says that he saw in his 
travels through the island ** young and unmarried 
women, with cloaks carelessly disposed in pic- 
turesque draperies, whilst their attitude bespoke 
the presence of youthful affection and innocent 
simplicity.'* Finally, the Rev. William Maxwell, 
a Protestant divine, tells us that in certain parts 
of Ireland despite a rather abnormal affection for 
drink on the part of the men, ** deceived and 
deserted females are seldom seen. * ' 

This nobility of Irish women has been the theme 
of countless songs throughout the century. For 
the most part, it is found interwoven with the 
great basic virtue of love that radiates purity and 
strength. Many pages might be filled with 
selections illustrative of poetry's passion for this 
theme. We are compelled to limit ourselves to 
two, one of which was written early in the century, 
and the other quite recently. 

[175] 



The Women of the Gael 

The first we give is that intensely passionate 
yet sublime address to love by 'Curnain, entitled 
Loves Despair. 

"Love that my life began, 

Love that will close life's span, 

Love that grows ever by love-giving : 

Love from the first to last, 

Love till all life be past, 

Love that loves on after living. 

Bear all things evidence 

Thou art my very sense, 

My past, my present and m^^ morrow. 

All else on earth is crost, 

All in the world is lost — 

Lost all — but the great love gift of sorrow. ' ' 

The woman that could create in the soul of a poet 
such a spark of heavenly passion could not but 
be magnificent. 

The other poem we take from a book of Padraic 
Columns verse. It is a lullaby that reveals the 
world of exquisite tenderness entombed in the 
heart of the twentieth century Irish mother for her 
child. It shows how rigidly her eyes are rivetted 
on the sanctum of the cradle, and how sacred she 
regards the atmosphere which surrounds it, whilst 
in other parts of the world * progressive ideas ^ 
would seek to rid it of much of this ^ superstitious ' 
character and exchange its * folly ^ for the more 
up-to-date demands of materialist eugenics. 

[176] 



Womanly Morality and Honour 

' ' ! Men from the fields ! 
Come gently within. 
Tread softly, softly, 
! Men coming in. 

Mavourneen is going 
From me and from you, 
Where Mary will fold him 
With mantle of blue ! 

From reek of the smoke 
And cold of the floor, 
And the peering of things 
Across the half-door. 

! Men from the fields ! 
Soft, softly come through 
Mary puts around him 
Her mantle of blue. ' ' 

There is also another type of poetry, the poetry 
of architecture, that lives in the sculptured marble 
and the chiseled beauty of stone-work of many 
a sacred edifice, that proclaims the grandeur of 
soul of modern Irish womanhood. Eivalling the 
princely church-builders of old, who gave ^ to 
Ireland so many of those abbeys of meditative 
loveliness, are the daughters of the Gael, who have 
worked since the days of Catholic emancipation 
for the construction of churches to replace the 
confiscated and plundered ones of their ancestors. 
In one sense they have surpassed the women of 
old, for unlike them, they are for the most part 

- [^77] 



The Women of the Gael 

poor in the world's goods, though doubtless the 
blood of many of them has been derived from a 
noble ancestry, whose broad lands the hireling and 
the stranger possess. They could not, however, 
be robbed of the gold of generosity and the price- 
less heritage of their faith. Even the Irish servant 
girl has established an envious reputation for 
herself as a generous donor of funds for the erec- 
tion of churches. Hundreds of sacred edifices in 
the English-speaking world almost completely 
owe their existence to the hard won money of the 
humble daughters of Ireland. They adorn not 
only their own land, but the Eepublic of the Starry 
Flag, the continent of the Southern Cross, mute 
but majestic witnesses of the loyalty of Irish 
womanhood to the twin inspirations of the voice 
of their Maker, and the traditions of their race. 

The zeal that has upreared so many churches 
continues to provide in abundance maidens for the 
rigours of convent life. Every year hundreds 
dedicate themselves to this cloistered existence 
where their spiritual work for the nation's youth 
is very considerable. Since this has rarely been 
questioned, we see no need for dwelling at length 
on it here. There are many, however, who main- 
tain that the good conferred on the people by 
their hidden life of religion is solely spiritual, and 
that in it all secular and civic usefulness are lost. 
With these we decidedly disagree. 

To prove our contention, we will select one 
feature of secular life, the industrial, in which 

[178] 



Womanly Morality and Honour 

Sisterhoods have done solid patriotic work for 
their country. In several important centres Irish 
nuns are in control of industries which provide 
employment for many hundreds, for whom other- 
wise emigration would be the only alternative. 
The thriving Youghal Needlelace Industry owes 
its origin in the famine-swept days of 1847 to the 
noble efforts of Sister Mary Anne Smyth. Very 
few who have learned the work of this institution 
have ever been lured from the services of their 
country to foreign climes. In the same year the 
Sisters of Mercy in Sligo started a cookery and 
laundry, by which several were rescued from 
starvation and death. This institution still 
flourishes, and since 1880 has added to its work 
the teaching of hosiery-making. Since 1900 the 
Sisters of St. Louis have directed some of the 
energy of Bundoran towards the making of the 
well-known Garrickmacross lace. Instances like 
these might be enumerated for several towns in 
Ireland to show that the modern daughters of the 
ancient faith are, in their attention to the needs 
of the body, as well as those of the soul, true to 
the tradition that has come down to them from 
the great Abbess of Kildare. 

Thus it is apparent that the public heroism 
which has marked the story of Irish womanhood 
during the last three centuries has been the off- 
spring of that silent heroism that has dwelt in 
woman's soul, whether by the hearth-stone or in 
the cloister. The numberless humble ones who, by 

[179] 



The Women of the Gael 

christian principles and industrial habits, have 
supplied the fuel that kept the fires of a nation 
burning, shall never be known, but the work they 
have accomplished is none the less glorious than 
that of those whom the searchlights of publicity 
have consigned to the everlasting reverence of a 
people. 



[i8o] 



CHAPTER XI 

Weiters of the Nineteenth and Twentieth 

Centuries 

WHEN last we parted with the women 
friends of letters at the close of the 
eighteenth century we saw them en- 
deavoring under the blight of many forces 
inimical to intellectual culture to keep up the hon- 
ourable tradition of their land as patrons rather 
than writers of literature. The confinement of 
their literary efforts to this sphere was neces- 
sitated by the penal laws which reigned in their 
country and threatened with prosecution and pun- 
ishment all possible flowerings of the national 
genius. The old learning which expressed the 
soul of the Gael was forced to seek a refuge in 
the hedge-school or the secrecy of a few great 
homes whilst England's brand of enlightenment 
arrayed in imperial garb was offered in its stead 
to an enslaved people. All that could be done 
in such circumstances was to prevent the national 
soul from becoming the prey of the imperial 
schoolmasters by keeping it true to its ancient 
cult in the *' catacombs. ' ' This Ireland did and 
we have seen what a part woman played in the 
defensive struggle. 

[i8i] 



The Women of the Gael 

That work merited for the feminine mind of 
Ireland an opportunity in later times of display- 
ing what it could achieve within the world of 
literary production which hitherto it was com- 
pelled merely to protect and patronise. How it 
availed itself of this opportunity that the destruc- 
tion of penal statutes brought it we are about to 
show by presenting to the reader a procession of 
the leading women writers of the nineteenth and 
twentieth centuries. In this pageant of the 
devotees of the pen there shall march a body of 
Irish ladies whose literary output bears favour- 
able comparison with that of their masculine 
rivals. A few striking individuals in the ranks 
of manhood have far surpassed the best women 
authors of Ireland but the average lady-writer 
can lay claim to as meritorious work as the aver- 
age labourer within the ranks of manhood can, 
boast of. 

Griving priority of position to poetry the first 
worker in that field in the early part of the nine- 
teenth century to claim our attention is Lady 
Dufferin. Her genius was probably a heritage as 
well as a personal endowment for her grandfather 
was none other than the reknowned Richard 
Brindsley Sheridan. Her poems were primarily 
songs and every song was a melody of tear- jewels 
revealing the sad beauty of a suffering race. One 
of these that will forever keep her memory fresh 
is the Irish Emigrant, which so simply and spon- 
taneously tells of the pangs of exile endured by 

[182] 



Writers of Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries 

the children of the Gael sundered from home and 
kin. It does not seem rash to state that few 
who have read it in boyhood days do not think 
with tenderness of its creator and bless her for 
the reminder she gave them of the loyalty they 
owe whether at home or abroad to that Dark 
Rosaleen whom in impressionable years tliej were 
tanght to cherish. Bearing a like message is 
Terence's Farewell. It mingles the pathos of 
exile with sweet strains of love whilst its dancing 
humour shows the everlasting sunshine that no 
sorrow could expel from the Irish heart. 

Resembling her muse was that of Mrs. Julia 
Crawford who was a distinguished daughter of 
County Cavan. From her prolific pen came over 
a hundred songs and amongst them that musical 
gem, Kathleen Mavourneen. For this song alone 
the poetess has earned the undying thanks of 
her people for it can never fail to charm them 
whilst they treasure the gold of a haunting air 
and the magic interwoven with pure true love. 

In Young Ireland days appeared Lady Wilde 
wielding a more robust and stormy pen in the 
interests of patriotism than any of those we have 
mentioned. In early life she had been so com- 
pletely outside the pale of national belief that 
when she saw the funeral of Thomas Davis pass- 
ing she confessed her complete ignorance of the 
dead patriot to whom the last honours of death 
were being paid. Her presence in Young Ireland 
ranks was therefore due to a radical conversion 

[183] 



The Women of the Gael 

from the modes of thought of her girlhood. Like 
most of those great spirits which have leaped 
from the darkness of error into the white light 
of consciousness of fealty to a sacred faith and 
ideal she carried with her new creed an invincible 
vehemence and fire in its advocacy. The energy 
and sincerity of the convert forged upon the 
printed page a supply of verbal weapons calcu- 
lated to stir the most phlegmatic of her readers. 

Side by side Avith her worked Mrs. Kevin Izod 
O'Doherty, ^^Eva^' of the Nation whose heroism 
we have already referred to. This young lady's 
patriotic poems remind one of that vigorous 
freshness and vitality which live in the winds 
that buffet the coast of her native Galway. They 
vent their clean fury on all that is foul and cry 
with an elemental strength against the unjust 
political structures that are the handiwork 
of man. 

With these two stormy petrels of Young Ireland 
verse there was also associated Ellen Downing, 
^^Mary of the Nation/' whose voice of poetic in- 
dignation though not as rugged, was none the less 
firm and determined than, theirs. With the calm 
vision of the saint she scanned all the mountain 
summits whereon patriotic right is seated and in 
sweet but unfaltering accents bade her country- 
men toil through woe and weal until all storms 
vanquished they reached those serene heights 
and could gaze down from the majesty thereof on 
a land where the quietude of justice had resumed 

[184] 



Writers of Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries 

its sway. The atmosphere of gracefulness and 
devont feeling upon which these directions were 
borne girt them round with that strength in 
appeal which always accompanies the dictates of 
a pure and gentle yet indomitable conscience. 

For many years longer she might have pro- 
longed her good work but a sore disappointment 
crept into her life and dried up the founts of her 
inspiration. One whom she had loved with a sin- 
cere Irish love forsook her and she left the 
troubled ways of the world for the reposeful soli- 
tude of the convent. There she prayed for her 
beloved land but never again wrote patriotic 
verse. ^ * She put by the lyre and in utter seclusion 
from the world lingered for a while; but ere long 
the spring flowers blossomed on her grave. '^ 

Advancing into the latter half of the nineteenth 
century we greet that poetic embodiment of Irish 
patriotism, Ethna Oarbery. Coming from the 
land of Tyrconnell where the mystery-laden mists 
so love to hold in their embrace the brows of the 
mountains and endow them with that Celtic and 
fairy-like fascination which lives in the grey 
cloudiness of Irish landscapes her soul drank in 
great draughts of the secrets of her native hills 
and under the influence of their intoxication sang 
in strains of weird beauty of the old old message 
of Eire to her children. Nature, in fact, seemed 
to be almost the sole source of her patriotic inspir- 
ation for she found in everything in her native 
place a medium through which to express the irre- 

[185] 



The Women of the Gael 

pressible story of the ages associated witli it. She 
appeared to feel the imminence of a national 
spirit in the very winds that fanned into vigour 
her beloved Donegal and she took up the pen 
not to create a beautiful fabric of words but to 
find an outlet for the patriotic fire that consumed 
her. That the alpha and omega of her songful 
inspiration was a sense of patriotism appears 
not only in her verse but in the testimony of her 
distinguished husband, Seumas Mac Manus. 
<<Prom childhood/' he says, *^till the closing- 
hour every fibre of her being vibrated with the 
love of Ireland. Before the tabernacle of poor 
Ireland's hopes she burned in her bosom a per- 
petual flame of faith. Her great warm heart 
kept the door of its fondest affection wide open 
to all who loved Ireland — and in her heart of 
hearts was sacredly cherished the memory of the 
holy dead who died for Ireland.'' 

As a result a tender simplicity and sincerity 
characterised all her poetry. Her folk songs were 
unsophisticated but this quality was their pass- 
port to her heart of a people close to nature, a 
people whom she loved to fancy as fellow-sharers 
with her of a love of their past and their beauti- 
ful present. No checks of technique injured the 
flow of her feeling. She spoke directly to her 
countrymen because she liked a heart to heart 
melody. The pity is that she ceased to speak so 
soon and that death smiled on her at an early 
age and called her from her soulful chantings. 

[186] 



Writers of Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries 

A prominent writer of the same generation as 
Ethna Carbery is Catharine Tynan Hinkson. 
Like the latter poetess she is gifted with a fascin- 
ating spontaneity. As some critic so well phrased 
it she is ^^an authentic singer with the true lyric 
note that she seems to have caught from the birds 
of the trees.'' The buoyancy of the heart-song 
constantly abides in her poetry and yet for all 
its sunshine we miss in it the sweetness of mourn- 
ing for a sacred cause that hovers o 'er the stanzas 
of Ethna. 

One, however who reminds us more of the 
Donegal songstress is Alice Furlong. She is a 
product of the City of Dublin yet there is little 
of the artificial atmosphere of urban life in her 
verse. She gives utterance to a music as deli- 
cately pathetic as the sighing of the wind amongst 
the reeds on the rim of a bleak Irish lake. Yet 
for all its sadness it is never foresaken by sweet- 
ness. To her generation we might also assign 
Alice Milligan who hails from the North of 
Ireland. In the land of the 'Neills she was born 
and there she found much of the mental pabulum 
that resulted in the breezy ballads she has given 
to Ireland. 

Belonging to the latest flowering of Irish poetry 
are many of the group of young writers of today. 
With the exception of Dora Sigerson who died 
recently they are relatively young and may yet 
bequeath a large crop of thought to their land. 

Though death did not find Dora Sigerson in 

[1S7] 



The Women of the Gael 

the ripeness of old age she left behind her a con- 
siderable amount of verse. She was destined by 
living in England to be divorced from the con- 
stant influence of her native soil yet her mind 
always clung to the land of her birth. A decidedly 
Celtic atmosphere envelops her writing and this 
is the fundamental reason of its best literary 
characteristics. The fascinating weirdness of her 
poems revealing the doings of distinctively Celtic 
sprites, the fairies, makes us forget her mere 
technical deficiencies. She may err in metrics 
and in style but she handles with a deft hand that 
familiarity which exists between Irish character 
and the invisible world. She makes us love the 
fairies despite all their elfish malice because she 
makes them so human without robbing them of 
their supernatural anchorage. They are so Irish 
in all their ways that we insinctively forgive them. 

In addition her diction is admirably adapted 
to her subject. The rhythmic swing of her ballads 
is as free and airy as the goblins that are its 
theme. The familiarity and homeliness of expres- 
sion with which they reach out to the heart are 
akin to that atmosphere of kindly relations which 
they seek to generate in us towards the world of 
the spiritual. 

Very close in character to the poetry of Dora 
Sigerson is that of Nora Hopper. It has a like 
clinging mysteriousness of thought whilst the 
weird apparel of its words intensifies the uncan- 
niness of its conceptions. Though extensive the 

[i88] 



Writers of Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries 

fecundity that characterises it it does not seem to 
lower the standard of its poetic quality. It is 
always as fresh as the dew on an Irish hillside 
and tenderness and gems of fancy seldom abandon 
it. No less an authority than Mr. Yeats, perhaps 
Ireland ^s greatest singer in the English language, 
has acclaimed her ** Ballads of Prose'' as an 
adeptly woven fabric of mystic thought and 
symbol. **They delight us,'' he says, ^^by their 
mystery, as ornament full of lines, too deeply in- 
terwoven to bother us with discoverable secret, 
delights us with its mystery; and as ornament is 
full of strange trees and flowers that were once 
the symbols of great religions, and are now mix- 
ing one with the other, and changing into new 
shapes, this book is full of old beliefs and stories, 
mixing and changing in an enchanted dream." 

For the next writer we go to the County of 
Antrim. This is Moira O'Neill. She has given 
pleasant glimpses of the peasant soul of Ireland 
and she has not spoiled their sincerity by any 
vulgarity of literary artifice. But Irish literature 
is most of all indebted to her for her masterpiece, 
* * Corrymeela, " where she sings with a lambent 
fluency of the mysteries of the dawn reminiscent 
of the free limpid progress of her native hill- 
rimmed rivulets in the Glens of Antrim. 

And last of all treading the ways of mysticism 
come Susan Mitchell and Ella Young. They have 
gazed into the wondrous worlds which George 

[189] 



The Women of the Gael 

Russell has pointed out and more distinctly than 
any of their sisters of the pen have attempted to 
fashion visions for themselves like unto his. With 
these we part with the daughters of poesy and 
turn to those who were content to labour in the 
literature of prose. 

In this department of letters, especially romance, 
Irish women in modern days have climbed into 
high favour and carried off many laurels from the 
men. In this respect, too, it is our belief they have 
displayed far more talent than those of their sisters 
who used poetry as a medium of expression. 

In discussing these ladies we can make a very 
dignified start with Maria Edgeworth who is the 
doyen of them all and as a novelist holds a high 
place amongst kindred writers of the English 
speaking world of her day. Her ^ ^ Castle Rackrent ' ' 
with its beaming humour cleverly mingled with 
exquisite pathos is generally recognised as her 
masterpiece. Looking at her work as a whole she 
accomplished for the Ireland of her day some- 
thing worthy of her comparison with what Scott 
achieved for his native land. The folk-lore and 
feelings of her country she made tribuary to 
her pen and utilised them to produce works of 
high artistic value. So self-sacrificing was she 
and so sacred a conception had she of her literary 
duty towards her native land that she refused her 
hand in marriage to one whom she deeply loved 
that her activity as an author might not be 
checked. She sacrificed him and everything else 

[190] 



Writers of Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries 

that her heart desired when they were deemed 
inimical to the interests of her country. 

She was not, however, a solitary prose luminary 
in her age. There was Lady Morgan who worked 
at fiction and wrote novels that were fearless and 
honest and rooted in a soul that loved its country. 
She was one of the best literary supporters that 
the Emancipator had. To the early nineteenth cen- 
tury Dublin gave Anna Jameson, who was the au- 
thor of some tales and a vigorous pen exponent of 
the rights of women. Caroline Norton who laboured 
so arduously for the betterment of woman's status 
and the condition of the poor was a romantic 
writer of high standing and in this sphere dis- 
played a power of repartee that w^as not surpassed 
by her zeal as a doer of good deeds. From the 
Marble City came Mary Costello to whom Ireland 
is indebted for sketches of Dublin which are vivid 
and worthy of remembrance. Lismore was hon- 
oured by being the birthplace of Julia Crotty who 
attained distinction by portrayals of Irish char- 
acter. Her pictures sometimes caused offense to 
sensitive readers but she quailed not before 
criticism for she justified herself on the grounds 
of realism. Mrs. Sadlier in her enthusiasm for 
the moral uplift of her countrymen used with con- 
siderable success the novel as a means to attain 
her end. Castle Daly, one of the best of Irish 
stories owes its existence to Annie Keary. 

We now pass on to a group of novelists who 
primarily belong to a later period. The first we 

[191] 



The Women of the Gael 

select for consideration is Jane Barlow whose 
name is a very respectable one in Irish literature. 
In her work there gleams a wealth of peasant 
character that bespeaks marked gentleness and 
simplicity on the part of the writer. Silvered 
streaks of hnmonr and golden veins of pathos are 
everywhere in scintillating evidence. A wit that 
leaps forth from pictnresqne and mnsical lan- 
guage is constantly present to endow with a peren- 
nial freshness the creations of the artist. To sum 
up in the words of George Green in the Treasury 
of Poetry, *4t may be doubted, indeed, whether 
anyone has, to the same extent, sounded the depths 
of Irish character m the country districts and 
touched so many chords of sympathy, humour and 
pathos as Jane Barlow. ' ' 

With an object kindred to that of Miss Barlow, 
Elisabeth Blackburne Casey devoted herself to 
romantic literature. Amid the pasture lands of 
Meath she found many interesting peasant 
subjects for her pen. In the manipulation of these 
she exhibited certain dramatic powers which lent 
a striking vitality to her tales. Coupling with this 
an attractive and picturesque background, she 
succeeded in producing sketches of the peasant 
soul endowed with uncommon brilliancy and 
vividness. 

At a distance from pastoral influences in the 
City of Dublin Mrs. Blundell first saw light. 
However, as she advanced in years, she found 

[192] 



Writers of Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries 

herself in surroundings more congenial to her 
nature. She left the ** madding crowds," and the 
places where the artificial and material knock so 
loudly at the gates of the heart for the romantic 
and mystery-haunted highlands of Donegal. 
There, despite the ravages of a long and painful 
disease, she held her ear ever open to receive the 
whisperings of wonder. The pleasure that these 
messages from a marvel world afforded her she 
told of in sweet tales brimming over with Arabian- 
like magic. She wrote them especially for the 
perusal of children who are always so near to 
the wonder-world and who wreathe with glory 
'Hhat never was on land or sea'' what to mature 
eyes seem the most commonplace realities. 

In a part of the country, similar to Donegal 
because of its remarkable immunity from the 
artificialities of life, did Emily Lawless find food 
for her novels. Revelling in the gaunt, wild 
scenery of West Clare and Galway, she extracted 
from the granite-sheathed hills and the wind-vexed 
precipices material for the construction of some 
of the best novels that Ireland possesses. Here, 
in this hinterland of the Gael, she witnessed how 
close the heart of man was to the throbbings of 
nature's heart, and what a harmony prevailed 
between them. Into her novels she introduced 
with marked success this intimacy between man 
and nature to which she attached the weird adorn- 
ment of the grand terrors of the West mingling 
dramatically with its embracing pity. 

[193] 



The Women of the Gael 

In the same inspiring West did Eosa Mnlholland 
find fuel for the fire of a writer's sonl. From the 
mountains there came to her the voice of a 
romance, coupled with that message of mysticism 
that gives a distinctly religious tinge to her writ- 
ings. Yet, for all her hankering after the mys- 
terious, she loves a serene simplicity, which seems 
to have been dictated by her love for children, for 
whom she intended so many of her books. 

Rosa brings us to the end of the writers of 
romantic works. A few others still remain who 
devoted themselves to a literature of a di:fferent 
type, and to these we must devote a few pages, 
before our final farewell to women literateurs of 
Ireland. 

In dramatic literature there is a distinguished 
representative in Lady Gregory, who has done as 
much, perhaps, for the Irish stage, as anyone in 
the history of Ireland. Her name must be forever 
linked with that revival in dramatic art, which 
began with the last decade of the nineteenth 
century. Living in the western Gaelthacht, she 
was closely in touch with that folklore which pro- 
vided material for the most successful type of 
play that the dramatic movement has produced. 
Utilising this, she has produced stage literature 
of high merit. To the sphere of a writer, however, 
she has not limited herself. She has worked 
zealously for the success of the Abbey Theatre, 
and has never failed to encourage all aspiring 
writers who are endeavoring to produce dramatic 

[194] 



Writers of Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries 

literature that might lend lustre to that playhouse 
and their country. 

In the more sober subject of history, Sarah 
Atkinson displayed in periodical literature a mind 
of no mean calibre. In her footsteps has followed 
Mrs. John Richard Green, who is a worthy wife 
of a distinguished husband, and one of the most 
scholarly historians that Ireland has produced. 
Her contributions to the story of her land reveal 
a cultured intellect, steeped in the lore of the past. 
For the economic and educational department of 
their history which had been so badly neglected, 
Irishmen are especially indebted to the labours 
of Mrs. Green. 

Another lady, Frances Power Cobbe, invaded 
a realm that is closely associated with that of the 
historian. She delved into the problems of 
sociology, and herein won considerable respect 
for herself by the able manner in which she cham- 
pioned the rights of women in public life. She did 
this, too, through the medium of a style that was 
fresh and attractive. Thus, the readable character 
of her writings, as well as the interesting material 
they contained, won for her a very large circle 
of readers. 

In a sphere partly historical and partly liter- 
ary, three other ladies laboured with considerable 
success. Eleanor Hull has done much for early 
romantic history, and her work on the ancient 
tales has largely contributed to their being more 
sympathetically and widely known. Miss Stokes, 

[195] 



The Women of the Gael 

the sister of the well-known authority on Celtic 
literature, has done a good deal for the cause of 
Gaelic scholarship. In Irish scenery and its his- 
torical associations, Mrs. S. C. Hall found especial 
interest, and her work in this respect has added 
largely to that fascination which the physical 
contour of a country, viewed in the light of the 
past, always holds for a nation that reveres the 
great days gone by. 

But, the most sublime path of all was reserved 
for the literary foot-prints of Agnes Mary Clarke. 
Clad in the robes of the astronomer, she sought 
the mysteries of the firmament. In this capacity 
she exhibited an acute power of observation, for 
her thought was characterised by a profundity 
and accurateness that shone to fullest advantage 
through a clear medium of expression. Yet, for 
all the depths plumbed by her mind, she managed 
to speak of her scientific researches in a manner 
that was highly attractive. 

We can not let the curtain down on the women 
devotees of literature without mentioning the 
Countess of Blessington. Though a novelist of 
some note, she primarily deserves to be remem- 
bered for the kindness she bestowed on all who 
loved a life of letters. Belonging to hospitable 
Tipperary, she was as noble an ornament of that 
county as was Margaret O'Connor in mediaeval 
days of the principality of OfPaly. For fourteen 
years her spirit of hospitality welcomed to her 
home wit and genius, whenever they sought an 

[196] 



Writers of Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries 

entry. From beyond the seas, as well as from 
different parts of her own land, learned men were 
lured to the pleasing atmosphere of her home. In 
the words of Mr. Proctor, **men famous for art 
and science in distant lands sought her friend- 
ship, and the historians and scholars, the poets 
and the wits, and painters of her own country 
found an unfailing welcome in her ever hospitable 
home. ' ' She maintained in the nineteenth century 
that tradition of devotion to the elevated and im- 
materialistic concept of civilisation, which is the 
only explanation of what Mr. G. K. Chesterton 
calls the * miracle' of Ireland's survival as a 
nation. 



[m] 



CHAPTER XII 

The Motheks and Daughters of Today 




ITHERTO we Have, for the most part, 
devoted our attention to that section of 
Irish womanhood which has come prom- 
inently before the public eye; we now intend to 
smng the censer of praise before the shrine of 
the multitudes of great ones who, in the secret 
places of their quiet homes, keep kindled the fires 
that contribute to the perpetuity of the nation's 
life. 

It is a truism, yet one that never grows stale 
by repetition, that as the family is, so the nation 
shall be. If this is true of nations that live the 
most artificial of lives and do greatest violence to 
family traditions, it is especially verifiable 
amongst a people like the Irish who are still so 
close to nature, and considerably influenced in 
their national activity by the precepts and cus- 
toms of their sires. It is evident, then, that the 
force that moulds in such a community the life 
of the family possesses an extraordinary potency 
to shape the destiny of the nation. Such a force 
we believe to be primarily the property of Irish 
mothers. 

The Irish mother is as true to her God-given 

[198] 



The Mothers and Daughters of Today 

nature as any that breathes on earth, for she dedi- 
cates herself with the most sacrosanct sense of 
fidelity to the most essential work of motherhood, 
the care of the child. 

This solicitude for her offspring is most in 
evidence in the Irish mother 's clinging love of the 
cradle. She gives personal attention to the child 
at the most troublesome stage of its existence, and, 
wealthy or poor, rarely deems any other hand 
than her own worthy of watching by the infantas 
cot. And what a care she lavishes on the little 
one that Grod has sent her! Who that has ever 
heard an Irish mother whisper in tenderest accents 
her love to her little one, or fling the caresses of 
her dream-song round the infant fancy, can fail 
to realise what a world of maternal affection 
dwells within her bosom! She has the sweetest 
lullabies that any mother can boast of wherewith 
to lull to sleep the baby mind. Her slumber songs 
are so sleep-inducing, that rarely does childish 
restlessness fail to surrender to their crooning 
magic. For this reason she seldom needs those 
artificial methods of the more * cultured' mothers 
of humanity to hand over her child to the 
strengthening repose of slumberland. She gives 
a peace by the sheer overflow of her maternal 
feeling and the music of her soul to her infant care 
that nothing else can provide. 

This solicitude for the infant she may have to 
manifest for many a year, for her affection for 
children is not alienated as her married life 

[199] 



The Women of the Gael 

advances by the frivolous objects that entertain 
the foolish attention of so many women in 
countries where science is developed to the detri- 
ment of morality. Yet, she fears not the trouble 
that every new child-gift from the Almighty may 
occasion her, for she has not succumbed to any 
materialistic creed that cherishes physical comfort 
more than the dictates of duty. She knows the 
value of the child soul, which is the most precious 
thing that heaven could give to earth. As a true 
christian she knows the necessity and worth of 
self-sacrifice as a means of attaining any end that 
is great and sublime, whether in the spiritual or 
temporal order. Accordingly, she understands 
that if she is to entertain the hope of having sons 
and daughters who shall be her pride and her 
glory, she must be ready to endure the suffering, 
mental and physical, that is associated with the 
rearing of a family. This is distinctly her spirit, 
and it rarely fails to reap the reward of the 
splendid self-denial on which it is based. The 
average Irish family is large, and seldom disloyal 
to the one mainly responsible for its moral and 
physical well-being. 

Next to the religious motive, some merely 
natural attributes of the Celt contribute to the 
strength of the maternal instinct in the Irish 
woman. The element of the affectionate is uni- 
versally admitted to be one of the leading con- 
stituents of Irish character. It manifests itself 
in a thousand different ways, and largely explains 

[200] 



The Mothers and Daughters of Today 

the position of universal esteem whicli the Irish 
race enjoys amongst every people that feels its 
warmth. If this is true of the nation as a whole it 
is decidedly so of its womanhood, which finds in 
motherhood an opportunity of expressing the 
strongest and purest human love that warms our 
terrestrial globe. Even the terms of endearment 
with which she addresses her child bespeak in the 
Irish mother the refined and intense passion which 
consumes her. Such love-expressions as * pulse 
of my heart,' ^vein of my heart,' 'my share of the 
world thou art' reveal the shrine that maternal 
love possesses in the inmost recesses of the Irish 
mother's being. This affectionate bent of her 
nature is reenf orced by her racial imaginativeness 
and romanticism. The possibilities that the future 
holds for the child, and the dreams she weaves 
round its developing mind very often provide her 
with a powerful incentive to bestow on it her most 
jealous care. Then, she has that intense Celtic 
pride of family, which urges her to rear children 
who shall be worthy of the best traditions of those 
who came before her. And finally, she is endowed 
with an instinctive conservatism which is a strong 
barrier against all temptations to abandon the 
home for more 'up-to-date' activities outside it. 

This love of the home makes her dwelling-place 
not a mere inhabitable edifice of brick and mortar 
and furniture. It is not so much mere property, 
to be arbitrarily bartered for money. It entombs 

[201] 



The Women of the Gael 

a something which cannot be purchased. It is, in 
a word, a home in the truest, and, if you will, the 
most old-fashioned sense of the word. It is the 
centre of all the most treasured memories of her 
own and her family's life. It has wound itself so 
intimately into her fancy, and has, so to speak, 
absorbed so much of the family soul by constant 
association with it, that it cannot be abandoned 
without doing violence to an integral part of the 
mother's spiritual existence. Thus does her innate 
conservatism transform the prosaic house of stone 
and mortar into the poetic and spiritual entity 
called the home, and bind her heart to it by the 
strongest of bonds. 

Where such devotion to the home exists, there 
must be present a high standard of morality. This 
is certainly realised in the feminine head of the 
Irish household. Her devotion to religion is re- 
vealed in several ways, to only a few of which we 
can here pay attention. She is strongly attached 
to prayer. In fact, her daily existence is, to a 
large extent, immersed in an atmosphere of 
prayer. Prayerfulness is manifest in most of her 
daily actions. During the day her ordinary con- 
versation is shot through and through with the 
names of things sacred. And when the special 
time for prayer arrives at night, the whole family 
must faithfully assemble, to lay the wreathe of 
the Rosary at Mary's feet. Not content with this, 
she arranges a program of prayers at the con- 

[202] 



The Mothers and Daughters of Today 

elusion of the Eosary, which begs the Creator's 
aid for the entire world, and especially for those 
in the throes of suffering and distress. Friends 
and enemies, poor and rich, christians and un- 
believers, all find themselves commended to the 
mercy of the Most High, by the pitiful, devotional 
soul of the Irish mother. 

And the virtues she exalts in her prayers she 
strives to practise. She is no mechanical utterer 
of pious phrases. She walks along a high path 
of virtue, especially that of purity. She is a model 
of modesty, and her marked devotion to her mar- 
riage vow saves Ireland from those disgraceful 
scenes which disfigure the moral and social life of 
so many other countries. Not only has her husband 
no cause for complaint in this respect, but her 
uprightness is a considerable factor in the preser- 
vation of her partner 's moral integrity. Drink is 
the greatest vice with which the Irishman has to 
contend, and many an Irish husband has been kept 
from rushing over its precipice to destruction by 
the angel efforts of a good wife. Oftentimes it 
occasions the wife a veritable white martyrdom 
to accomplish this, but she considers the victory 
gained a sufficient recompense for the sufferings 
endured. 

Still more beneficial, perhaps, is her influence 
over her sons and daughters, for it is reenforced 
by an authority which they dare not disrespect. 
Oftentimes her sons remain with her until they 
are mature men, for late marriages have become 

[203] 



The Women of the Gael 

the custom in Ireland, yet they are always her 
* boys' and follow her guidance with a boyish 
instinct. Very likely, it is this submission to long 
maternal tutelage that engenders more than aught 
else in the Irishman that deep-seated respect for 
womanhood, of which his nation is so proud. For 
her daughters, she is a worthy example of 
womanly modesty and piety. Her vigilance care- 
fully shields them, and many liberties that are 
ordinarily granted to young ladies of other coun- 
tries are denied these. Their relations with young 
men are most rigidly scrutinised, for the maternal 
instinct treasures most of all that virtue tha,t has 
been the glory of the daughters of the Gael for 
all time. Assuredly, when we think of the honour 
and purity of Irish youth, we cannot fail to see 
how nobly the Irish mother fulfills the high 
mission entrusted to her by Providence. We can 
not resist endorsing the beautiful tribute paid 
the Irish mother by a recent writer, when he says : 
^*She is the foremost among the hidden saints of 
earth. A follower of Christ, whose cloister is 
within the four walls of the home. A lover of 
Christ, whose little kingdom comprises the 
treasured souls whom God has given her to guide. 
A ruler of Christ, who draws her subjects to her 
by sanctity and love. Her t old-worn hands that 
clasp the old, brown rosary, are eloquent of 
strength to seize and lift to good all souls they 
meet; her lips are moulded to lines of peace by 
years of unending prayer, and murmured benisons 

[204] 



The Mothers and Daughters of Today 

over sleeping babes ; upon ber brow eternal calm 
and resignation sit enthroned. '** 

If the Irish mother 's love for the beauty of the 
moral order is so intense and sublime, her admira- 
tion for the God-given love of country is none the 
less insistent. 1 Today she is manifesting a heroism 
in the cause of her land that bids fair to emulate 
that of Irish matrons in the most trying days of 
the past. Only a few years ago, she manifested 
a fortitude that might grace the story of Ireland 
in the days of its greatest sacrifices. In that 
glorious week of 1916, when the husband and son 
went forth against overwhelming odds to battle 
for their country, Irish wives and mothers offered, 
with sorrow-rent and dauntless hearts, their men 
to the great mother of them all, the Poor Old 
Woman. Many of these husbands and sons made 
the supreme sacrifice of their lives, and hundreds 
of them endured the tortures of a prison existence, 
whilst their women-folk had to bear the terrible 
anguish of the mind as they pondered, in the lone- 
liness of their homes, on the miseries suffered by 
their patriot men. Yet, they could not be broken, 
and though natural sorrow played havoc with their 
spirits, their will to stand by the manhood of their 
homes remained unconquerable. And, at this 
moment, their heroic patience and encouragement 
are some of the greatest aids that a manhood 
struggling against a militaristic tyranny could 
have. In the martyrdom of the spirit which they 

* The Soul of Ireland. W. J. Lockington. SJ. p. 110, 

[205] 



V 



The Mothers and Daughters of Today 

nobly bear, their men find a strength and inspira- 
tion that nerve them for any martyrdom of the 
body which foreign despotism may impose npon 
thenip> 

From the mothers of to-day we turn for a 
moment to their daughters, to see how the seed 
of maternal example and teaching produces fruit 
in their character. 

The young women of Ireland can perhaps carry 
off the premier prize of the world for maidenly 
modesty and purity. They are as bountifully 
dowered as the daughters of any land with those 
natural gifts which, if not properly used, prove 
seriously detrimental to morality. They are as 
attractive, physically, as any that breathe, for the 
Divine Artist has endowed their forms with a 
beauty that cannot be surpassed anywhere. They 
have as keen a sense of the joie de vivre, and as 
generous a fund of the sunniness of life as can 
be claimed by the girlhood of any nation. Yet, 
they know where to set up the barriers between 
true and false pleasure, and rarely seek enjoyment 
at the expense of morality. There is a lower per- 
centage of illegitimate births in Ireland than in 
any other country in the world. Whenever a child 
is born outside wedlock, so shocked is the public 
sense by the very unusual occurrence, that it 
brands with an irreparable stigma, and, to a large 
extent, excommunicates the woman guilty of the 
crime. The Irish girl's most prevalent mode of 

[206] 



The Women of the Gael 

amusement is a type of dance that, perhaps of all 
the dances in the world, is the most innocent, 
though inferior to none in vigour and variety. She 
takes part in this solely to find an outlet for the 
music of her soul, and the Celtic energy that 
hungers for the poetry of rythmic movement. 
When she dreams of a partner in life, the romantic 
and imaginative in her calls forcibly for the pres- 
ence of the aesthetic in the future husband, but 
her primary desire is that her bridegroom have 
a fair heart and an honourable conscience. She 
longs with a feminine longing for attractive 
apparel, but her dress must not sacrifice a sense 
of maidenly decorum for the false allurements that 
unbecoming fashions may hold. 

As, like her mother, the Irish maiden is moral, 
so, like her too, she is patriotic. She is an active 
member of many societies, the avowed aim of 
which is the emancipation of her country. She is 
a prominent element in the Gaelic League, that 
has done and continues to do, so much for the 
preservation of the ancient Gaelic tongue, for the 
slain industries of Ireland, and for the resurrected 
vitality of the manners and customs that sprang 
from the genius of the Irish Celt. She is a staunch 
supporter of Sinn Fein, and is always ready, as 
she was at Easter Week, to offer the testimony of 
her blood to prove the creed that is in her. She 
is, in a word, as true to-day to the ancient heritage 
of her people as any generation of women who 

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The Mothers and Daughters of Today 

have preceded her, and clings as staunchly to the 
century-long hope that, when freedom abides 
again with Eire, its benisons will come in full 
measure to those who have been and ever shall be, 
loyal ** Women of the Gael.^' 

THE END 



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